"Less expensive, and almost as good for its intended use," is a completely logical and very common explanation for military procurement decisions. An additional dimension to the issue is that longbows were cheaper for peasants to practice with, and archers are likely to be more accurate if the weapons they use in combat are similar to the ones they used in practice than if they are called up for military service and have to use bows considerably different from what they spent years practicing with.
This seems the most logical to me. Recurves are harder to make and therefore probably more expensive. Probably worth if you plan to be a professional soldier, but England had a regiment of all people training so people probably want cheap ones. I've shot both recurve and longbow and admittedly they aren't that different. With less modern materials recurves are definitely better, but not to the point they are going to kill something a longbow wouldn't if you're shooting at a reasonable aiming distance. When considering this period england didn't really have a standing army, you'd probably just be better off using the longbows all the peasants know how to use. Like sure they'd have the muscles needed to use either which is the biggest part of the training, but you wouldn't want to rekit and spend time getting them used to aiming with the new bow.
It's something people always forget that Equipment doesn't just appear out of thin air or is mass produced in Factories during the 11th century. Longbow as far as I know is also easy to maintain which is another thing that people forget, Recurve bows iirc is also Composite which while powerful is harder to maintain, as just rain and humidity will weaken the bow which defeats the point of the rather expensive Composite material. There's also one archery video I think from Blumineck regarding aiming in archery which for short isn't like aiming down sight, but more on instinct which doesn't really need to be passed down from grandfathers, however Fathers can quickly teach their sons to quickly learn the basics especially in forms as English Longbows have their own forms to shooting with longbows, while those who don't have such father can still train and learn from other longbowmen which is why the English King banned most sports other than archery.
Describing the classic mil spec fallacy... Because the military uses it it must be more powerful and specialized than the civilian version right? No, it just means that some guy put out a requisition for a thing that solves a problem within budget and that can be produced at sufficient scale.
There's this talented Bulgarian craftsman Stiliyan Stefanov - by watching his channel, one can immediately see how much labor goes into making one of those composite bows....
Except he didn't even try to debunk the idea longbows can shoot heavier arrows or not, or whether or not the weight of the arrow makes any difference to their armor penetration ability. All he did was say _these other guys used these other bows, so they had to be just as good._ I'm not saying I know the answer, but I am saying he ignored the entire point of that argument.
Agreed. I think there's enough there for each of us to form our own ideas. Personally, as someone who lives in a heavily wooded area (similar to much of NW Europe during the Medieval times) and hunts with a bow, I can add my take. Shooting a bow in a wooded area compared to say an open field in the Steppes is a whole different experience. You really don't need a lot of range to shoot in the woods because it just doesn't exist in many cases. Even in an elevated position, I don't get a lot chances to shoot at game at distances beyond 50-75m. So, if you can make a cheap bow that has adequate range for your environment, why would you care to upgrade it for more range at the cost of extra resources?
Hungarian here: I think you are right. Hungary's defining military unit had always been light cavalry (or later hussars) because Hungary was a flatland, surrounded by the Carpathian mountains so it made sense to focus on cavalry: each time an enemy invaded, horsemen from all over the country could have reacter fairly quickly. And as you mentioned, the recurve bow works better on a horse.
It is not exactly like that. Between the ancient magyar period and the hussars there is a big gap of 5 centuries in witch heavy knight cavalry was the backbone of hungarian army. Of course even in this time they have horse archers but they where drawn primerally from nomadic nations like cumans, pechenegs and alans.
already at 14:00 and i thought that usually Turks in general used bows on horseback, while i think longbows were used on foot, so the fighting strategy was different, but maybe when Turks fought in europe, maybe they used different strategies, but the most prevalent fighting style associated by Turks and nomads in general was shooting arrows on horseback.
An important reason is that in Eastern European and especially in Asian cultures mounted archers where the elite warriors. Bows and other archery equipments were status symbols.The ottoman sultans had thumbrings as royal insignia. The chinese royal guards were horse archers. Or just think about the chinese "baogong" or "precious bow". Meanwhile in Western Europe heavy knights were the elite so here the knightly arms became the symbol of high status. Bows were more like a utilitarian tool of war or hunting. Therefore in the east they wouldn't mind the higher cost and more complex methods of making a composite bow as it was the "top tier" weapon, while in the west they just needed a cheaper, simpler tool to do the job.
And so the lower class troops who were archers in north West of Europe opted for longbow they could afford as opposed to the more technical composite bows
@nathangreig5884 I wouldn't classify them as lower class. They were in the intermediate class between peasant and landed gentry. We would think of them as middle class, people who were high enough that they could be very skilled soldiers without threatening the hierarchy, but still expendable.
@hypothalapotamus5293 Yes, longbowmen were pulled from the Yeoman class, they had to own about 100 acres of land, or from townsmen of similar wealth. Yeomen often held minor political posts such as bailiffs and local tax collectors as well as even local sheriffs of smaller counties. No peasants could afford a longbow. It is a misguided belief that all English peasants were longbowmen.
@robo5013 But that is just England..... there is nothing to suggest France or Burgundy or Spain had such classes. Hell, crossbow were held in higher regard on the cotinenet, like the Genovese.
@robo5013 You got that a bit wrong in one regard. You are assuming you had to be a yeoman to become an archer. But it was also true that skill at archery could make you a yeoman. This is one of the reasons why the bow was celebrated by peasants. Because there where peasant archers and this was one path open to you for promotion. Also, you might not be able to purchase a longbow, but not much stopped you from making one. In fact, they where encouraged to do this.
I think moisture, especially with regards to long campaigning, was more of a factor than you're giving credence to. Archers in South Asia wouldn't fight in the monsoon, but if English and French archers couldn't fight in a drizzle then they'd never get anything done.
The biggest disadvantage of composite bows was that they took a lot longer to build. They were perfectly capable of shooting heavy arrows. Some Turkish bows had just as much draw weight as the heaviest longbows. I'm sure the reason the English used self bows was financial.
another reason ive seen suggested is cultural. Across Asia, bows were a high status weapon. They had been ever since lords of the fertile crescent rode to battle on chariots with bows and javelins. Lords and nobles fought with bows on the battlefield. So they wanted the best possible bows and had the wealth to obtain them. Which meant there was the supply chain and expertise to make composite war bows in every wealthy settlement. And the understanding of how to use them on the battlefield. So when a lord wanted to equip a company of archers, he would equip them with mass produced versions of what he was already using, and have them use their bows on the battlefield like he was. So in Asia the best bows possible were made by the elites and then that technology trickled down to ordinary soldiers, and then that trickled down to normal civilians But in western Europe, nobles just didn't use bows in battle very much if at all. It just wasn't the done thing. So when a lord wanted to equip a company of archers, he would get the peasants to use the bows they were already using to hunt with, only making the bows bigger and heavier. And then those peasant archers would use their bows in a manner similar to how they already hunted with them, that is, sneaking up on targets and then shooting directly into their vulnerable points So west of Europe battlefield archery grew up from peasant hunters, using tech derived from peasant level infrastructure
@archigallus Yes, this is a very good explanation, too. I think the answer is a compound (no pun intended!) of a number of factors, including the one that you and Matt isolated.
Composite bows require more time and material to be made. The bowyer needs to process materials like horn and sinew as well as making glue to bind wood, horn and animal sinew together. It takes about a week to make a composite bow and is put aside for the glue to set up which requires months before the bow is ready. These factors make the composite bows more expensive than the traditional wooden self-bows. Western Europe actually used the composite bow technology to make crossbow prods. In the Middle East, East Asia, Eastern Europe and North Africa, composite bows are the primary weapons of mounted archers. Wooden bows are ill-suited on horseback due to its' great length. Wooden bows require specific length in order to function and will snap during a full draw if the required length is shortened. Composite bows are created to allow warriors to use bow and arrows while on horseback. In Western Europe, mounted warrior fought using swords, axes, maces or lances but not the bow.
It's not just that yew wood was local. Yew has a fairly unique quality in that the wood is incredibly easy to craft with and you could get 6-8 staves out of a piece of wood that might give you 2 or 3 out of the same amount of material from some other source. To say the material is simply local is not doing it justice. You could *massively* produce this weapon which while technically inferior to composite was still comparable. It wasn't just practical, it was a local resource that begged to be used for this purpose. It was also practical in the sense that your civilian population could get a hold of this material and craft their own weapons. This was encouraged as the people who used this weapon often where not professional soldiers and needed to be able to train with their bows on their own time and then often took these weapons which they where familiar with to war. Edit: I figured I might dive in a bit further 😅. Yew wood war bows when properly made naturally have something of a composite nature as both the heartwood (the part of the cross section that makes up the center) and sapwood (the part that starts where the heartwood ends and goes all the way to the bark) are both excellent materials for a war bow but do different things. One is good for rigidity and strength and the other is more elastic. So a yew longbow properly made with the appropriate ratio's of heartwood to sapwood already has some properties of a composite bow. I can't help but notice that the bow the content creator is holding is a single tone.... wasted potential there possibly. It is also much less finicky then other materials. For example, another wood that is considered to be on par or even superior then yew depending on the specimen is osage orange, a bow material often used in north America for longbows. While osage can technically make a better more powerful bow it requires finding a unicorn specimen that has substantial late wood to early wood ratio in the heartwood (the only usable part of the cross section for a stave). This means that even if you find a quality piece of material, you might get only a single stave out of it and osage is so finicky if you cut into the growth ring on the back of the bow even a little bit this will end with the bow breaking after only being used a few times.
Exactly. The Longbow was traditional and was in wide use. To retrain all the boyers in England in the making of laminated bows would be a monumental task.
In partially boils down to cost and logistics. It's like the difference between a fancy modern hunting rifle or shotgun, and the standard issue rifle in the army.
Ottoman flight archery record was around 840 meters, in Europe it may be 350-400 meters. Now close that 400 meters without firing back. Some recurve is so small, Janiseries acted as archer and infanrty alltogether. And also very suitable for horseback, and penetration power was high. But very expensive and takes long to produce.
The answer is: It was good enough for the French. Recurve bows are just so much superior there is a reason why its used in the VAST MARJORITY OF EURASIA. The only reason why Europe was spared was that the fertile steppe in near Europe is tiny, such that large horde invasions are rare, compared to China or India, where adopting the recurve bow is a necessity.
My guess is: the Mongols adopted composite bows because there are a few trees in the steppe. Few trees means few staves suitable to make longbows. Thus they resorted to materials they had plenty of, bones, sinew and horn.
@MrAranton And you think western Europe didn't have cattle providing all that stuff? Especially like the video noted England imported wood for bows because native forests were all chopped down...
The First Crusade was in 1096 and established the Crusader states of Outremer, Western European military figures were intimately acquainted with the composite recurve bow long before Crecy [1346] and Agincourt [1415], and remained so for many years after. They employed mounted archers of their own, the Turcopoles, and "the Francs" had access to the technology of making "Moorish" bows if they had wished to take it home to France, England and the states of the Holy Roman Empire; they didn't have to import them, they could have made them themselves. Clearly they didn't, at scale anyway, because they didn't think cost/materials/performance made it worth it.
Recurve bows were widely used in Irish and Scottish warfare. They were one of the reasons England suffered heavy losses of archers and mounted knights during the Scottish Wars of Independence and the Hundred Years’ War. Their design allowed for denser formations, as the shorter, curved limbs did not interfere with nearby soldiers, and they could also be effectively mounted.
Imo it probably boils down to just different archery and bowmaking culture, the fact that almost all western europe culture is using (for war) selfbow, finger draw or it's variation (and the effect of using the technique, e.g arrow on the left side) while in eastern europe (mind you, even the cossacks and the rus), and almost all parts of continental Asia, even siberia with indigenous tribes in America also advancing their own composite bow tech, but there's another catch, even today, composite bow faces the challenge that the traditional bone/hide glue that is used to bind the bow together is reversible through heat and water, which is why in my native Indonesia, it ain't rare to hear someone shooting a genuine hornbow during rainy season and/or didn't maintain their bow properly only for it to delaminate or even blowing off at the range. I have read that back in the day, this reversibility meant that if a part of the bow broke, you could go to a bowyer and get him to fix it up, glue it up, and you'll be off to war again. they do not have an issue of the warmth and humidity of equatorial tropics, because they are in either the steppe, which are hot and not so humid. Or desert, which are blazing hot and dry. So while it is not even practical to shoot in the rain, just try having a hornbow in england with limited maintenance lmao.
There's also something to be said, against the longbow, is that a higher velocity arrow will be more likely to cut through plate than a heavier arrow, if you have a look at Tod's most recent arrows vs armour, the lighter type sixteen were able to cut into (and in two places through) the plate and brigandine
Matt, here are estimates of active build times in their era with available materials: Longbow: 1-3 days (8-24 hours) with pre-seasoned wood and is immediately field ready. Recurve: 1-2 weeks (40-80 hours) followed by 6-12 months curing before field ready. Simple and fast outranked complex and slow. The war might be over before the troops could be outfitted, or long logistics supply lines behind the army are at risk of being cut off.
@bigutubefan2738 For England specifically, the bottleneck was usually getting the required number of boats: very few ports and merchants were overly eager to just have their ships waiting around for the king. Beyond that, one of the main problems was that the archers were either directly provided by the nobility themselves as according to their obligations, or bought as mercenaries with the money obligated when a noble was unable or unwilling to do. Unsurprisingly, many nobles did not actually maintain the state of readiness they were theoretically required to, given how expensive that was, so a lot of people would be rushing to outfit and/or train the needed soldiers as legally required.
Of course, the Mongols used the recurved bow virtually from childhood, since almost every able- bodied adult male was a warrior. So recurved bows were constantly being produced, then cherished by the user possibly for life.
You only really need the shorter recurve if you're on a horse, if you can afford a horse you can afford a 12 month seasoned bow. So recurve for mounted archers, longbow for foot archers. I guess in Europe cavalry seemed to be more biased towards being heavily armed and non-ranged weapons.
Speaking as a Turkish American, archer and amatuer HopIoIogist. Archers in EngIand were commoners who bought their own bows for training, and contests, even if they were provided bows in times of war. They couId III afford compound bows as a group, they made or bought bows and when they did it had to be a famiIier design, one they used since ChiIdhood. Turkish horse archers were"nobIe" ish cIass, (Sipahi, Beys, Akinji or TimarIi horsemen or professionaIs ie Jannisaries et aI. Their bows and even arrows were not just more expensive, but works of art, even arrows were decorated. There is aIIways a cIass component to weapon usage in medievaI times.
@osmium6832 Curious, got a hit to wikipedia (Hoplology) as 1st result on google. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplology Maybe an issue with being on a different language version of google?
@sitraahra1778 That's very heplful, thank you very much! Google literally gave me a blank page and said "Did you mean hematologist?" lol. I realize now I should have tried again by rephrasing hoplologist as hoplology to have a better chance of getting a hit. Even now, spellcheck recognizes the latter but not the former as a word.
When drawing that recurved bow it seemed very easy to do also it was indicated that the arrows used for the long bow were heavier it doesn't seem the comparison is really like for like .
A Hungarian feflex bow had to be maintained and repaired by the soldier. We know this because there were spare parts in their bags that can be found in their graves. Those Hungarian riders were professional soldiers and it was one of their superweapon, so thez were pros in it. I imagine a long was a much easier weapon to mass produce and hand them, and maintaining was also much easier.
This is such a detailed and complex subject that it’s hard to break down cleanly. Standard explanations for why different bows were used are often too simple, or just plain wrong. The performance differences between the English longbow and composite bows are frequently overstated. The clearest distinction shows up when shooting very light arrows. Yet even John Smyth records English archers in his time shooting flight arrows out to 400 yards. To keep this brief, here’s my personal take. The biggest advantage of the composite bow lies in its compact size. Material differences matter, of course, but in most designs geometry is the real deciding factor. Composites could achieve favorable geometry while staying small, whereas wooden self bows needed to be larger to do the same. Modern people often picture northwest European bows as straight-limbed self bows, but contemporary artwork suggests otherwise. Longbows with recurved tips appear more commonly in depictions. In fact, many paintings of English archers show recurved profiles. On top of that, many of the Mary Rose bows show significant reflex. This added performance wouldn’t be obvious once a bow was strung, but it may help explain why those bows were so long despite apparently being drawn to only around 30 inches. We shouldn’t compare today’s “tired” recreational English longbows/warbows, often showing several inches of set and lacking any induced reflex or recurved tips, to the most efficient traditional designs, like Ottoman Turkish bows. Just my two cents.
It's actually understated if you believe that one test of a Manchu bow. 82lbs@32" Manchu matched the performance of 160@30" yew warbow. & Manchu bows could be drawn past 32" too. If that test is at all correct, English archers would have been absolutely terrifying with Manchu bows.
@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Keywords "if you believe that one test" lol. Personally, I've never seen any other numbers from manchu bows that come remotely close to those stated by Peter Dekker. Not saying he's lying...but... it doesn't add up. In fact, Peter's numbers match most compound bows lb for lb at that draw length.
@dgriswold93 What other tests of Manchu bows made of traditional materials exist? The kinetic energy involved does match some compound bows, but a higher-end compound can do somewhat better at a shorter draw length & with a much lighter arrow. For a good compound, 82lbs@30" might manage 110-115 foot-lbs at around 330 fps. But yeah, it is surprisingly close & a bit hard to believe. In any case, period accounts do note the high power of the Manchu bow & the design should store more energy than any other traditional bow while also having decent efficiency.
@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Others with natural materials? I know of none. I would love for someone to do that. Don't get what I am saying twisted, materials used does matter, but, it does not tell the whole story. Manchu bows will not magically become 20% more efficient because you used horn and sinew over laminated wood. Geometry matters most importantly. A good compound will generally not hit 110-115 ft.lbs. at 82lbs at 30". You'd need a full 32" draw for that. About the same as Peters test in fact. In which case, you may exceed those numbers, but some bows would not. For example, Josh Bowmar has done some speed test with his Hoyt Axius Ultra, he reached 99.4 ft.lbs. at 84 lbs and a 31.5"+ draw length. Of course, he could get higher with heavier arrows, but likely not exceeding 110 ft.lbs. None of this is apples to apples though, the real take home is Josh gets 1.60 joules per lb with that bow, Peters Manchu bow allegedly hit 1.65 joules per lb. If we give some grace to low arrow weight with Bowmar's test we can say it would match or slightly exceed the Manchu. But come on, that is a strange outcome. The compound bow manufactured with space age tech in 2023 with every single advantage in materials, f/d curve, engineering, efficiency, and using a handheld release can barely (maybe) surpass a horn and sinew bow? Every single other traditional bow I've ever seen tested cluster around 0.75 - 1.10 joules per lb. And that includes Ottoman turk horn bows shot with higher grains per pound than Peters test, and nearly 100% release efficiently with a shooting machine! Peter reports 1.65. It does not add up. I do not believe his numbers. It does not pass the sniff test and they make almost no mathematical sense. I would happily be proven wrong though. Sorry to just word vomit numbers at you...I like talking about this stuff...
The long length of the bow for a given draw length can also be explained by the use of a D profile. The materials properties of wood actually favor a flatbow, which can deform more without catastrophic damage. If they added sinews to the front of a flatbow and started replacing the wood with horn then it starts looking like an eastern bow... So, the economics of the D prophile of the longbow are probably the central question.
Without watching I'm going to guess longbows are; 1, easier, quicker, cheaper to make. 2, function better in adverse weather conditions. 3, weren't needed or used for horse archers. 4, I think the longbow might work better for shorter ranges using heavy bodkin style arrows, not sure about that one. Now to see how I did... After watching...Yes, mounted archers did usually use composite bows, and point blank shooting. I did read somewhere the Mongols had issues with their composite bow when the went to fight in India where it was humid as well as very warm.
They were sheaper and why would you give an expensive bow to a low class archer when the knights were the elite force? In asia the bow had a lot higher status
Longbows "stack" less when the archer nears full draw. Stacking is a function of the angle of the string from the arrow nock to the bow tip. Stacking is less with longer bows and can make them feel smoother to draw and easier to shoot at higher draw weights. Longbows without backing are stable weapons, while a laminate recurve which could delaminate in humid or wet conditions.
I have one personal theory, that also touches on the "draw weight theory". Recurve bows accelerate faster in the initial arrow release, that's in fact why they fire faster arrows for similar draw weight. That is also with ALL bows the point that puts the most stress on arrows themselves. The "gentler" release from long bow means the arrows themselves can be made to a lower strength. Assuming you are using heavier arrows, it would be easier to mass produce 1000 arrows to that lower specification. It ALSO means that arrow life would be extended, because if you find an arrow that "looks okay" at a quick visual inspection, it probably IS okay. Longbow archers could recycle their/enemy arrows with higher confidence levels than anyone using a recurve bow that may shatter the arrow into their arm. A possible death sentence given infection rates and quality control of the time. Basically, my theory rests on the crux NOT of the bow itself, which obviously per the video they could have acquired. But of the ammunition quality itself
It's a good theory, but Ottoman? (one of them around that area) largely fired mass volleys of heavier arrows as you might expect from longbows, in their organised composite bow armies.
I feel that this would still be secondary/tertiary to @deejin25's point about the class component to weapon usage, and the various points regarding cost/efficacy. You need to survive most of the battle to be scavenging ammunition, which means your bow still needs to be 'good enough'.
@RhysMaria-LauraElvins fair, but I view them as reinforceing each other honestly. The rich Turkish could afford the luxury of well built and artistic arrows, the Ferrarri or Lamborghini of the Archery World. The low born English were looking for the Mustang or Chargers, something that I don't care I put the wrong gas in its still gonna scream down the quarter mile just as fast. If you cant afford the ammunition costs for your weapon, you're never never going to fire it. Same reason when someone brings a .50cal to a range, its a treat everyone wants to fire. In this case, the ammunition costs are more about risk and cheap production, but even off battlefield training will, maybe more so, would be about recycling arrows
I think there is something very important missing here: selecting for projectile momentum (direct shooting with high arrow weights) or selecting for projectile velocity (shooting accurately or over long distances with light arrow weights) for a given draw weight and draw length. - Momentum: You need a thick bow cross section for high stress /low strain geometry (like an English longbow). The spring characteristic curve (which is usually linear for bows) is flat, which means, for a given draw weight, there is more energy in the power stroke. However, such bows are also more inefficient for a given arrow weight, as there is more mass in the limbs compared to a flat cross section recurve bow. The efficiency of the bow is arrow mass / (arrow mass + accelerated limb mass). Thus for a bow to be 100% efficient, it has to shoot infinitely heavy arrows or have infinitely light limbs. - Velocity: You need a flat cross section bow for high strain geometry (like a recurve bow). The spring characteristic curve of such a bow is steep, meaning less energy, but more forgiving for lightweight arrows in terms of efficiency (and probably also in terms of durability). Just to be clear: With modern materials you can have high stress and high strain. This is why fiberglass backed bows do NOT behave like traditional bows with the same draw weight. I did work on this for my engineering degree. We measured the spring characteristic curves of different bows (and thus the stored energy in the drawn bow) and then shot them with different weighted arrows, measuring the projectile velocity. We could then fit arrows to specific bows to maximise the momentum output as the momentum plotted over arrow weight would always give a parabolic function with a clear peak. However, we could not fit arrows for maximal efficiency or speed as these arrows would have been infinitely heavy (with 0 velocity) or infinitely lightweight (destroying the bow). This is the reason modern tournaments have a minimum arrow weight. The geometry part of this comment is a little bit conjecture on my side, as we never had enough bows (or other springs) to verify this exactly. It was sadly out of scope for our work. I hope this helps and sorry for the cumbersome explanation, English is not my first language.
The efficiency formula above is obviously just a way to exemplify the behavior of different bows with different arrows. It is neither practical to measure, nor overly accurate, as there are assumptions in it about velocities in the bow limb mass . The correct way to measure the efficiency is, as we have done, to measure the spring characteristic curve of the bow (energy input) and the velocity and mass of the shot arrow (energy output).
@dominikvucak4424 what matters is what the arrow achieves. Broad flat arrows for foot soldiers and horses with the barb making it difficult to remove the arrow causing dispute damage on the way out. A booking was for armour penetrative and a deep wound in less well protected parts of the body.
Had a bow considerably underpowered to a long bow, we shot it in a field it was quite poor shooting near straight line, so we shot in in the air just over medium strength it went over a football field distanceand more, my hear sank as I saw it disapear over a solid 6ft fence on a bank onto a path and main road, I was soo fortunate it never did any damage, never took it out again.
@andye4453 that is why you need to have, for bows and guns/rifles, a secured field to shoot. Very sturdy wall or hill towards which you shoot. If not available, the line of sight needs to be clear (free from obstacles) over a very long way. Just join , even for a small time, an archery club. It opens eyes to what you can achieve. Don't stop archery, it is so much fun
Right, it's in the historical records from Mongols trying to penetrate into "India". My understanding, it was mainly a matter of the glues used in the steppe not being suitable for more humid climates.
Water and high heat can be a problem and loosen up the glue used to laminate composite bows. And the mongols did have trouble with their bows losing draw weight in that environment. However, Indochina is a substantially more humid and warmer climate than northwestern Europe, so it still doesn't really answer the question.
@bgall74I am not a bowyer, but I have spoken to a few who can make traditional Asian composite bows and I have heard that the type of glue used to laminate can have a significant impact on the weapons response to humidity. Supposedly fish bladder glues soften up more easily than hide glues. I don't know of anyone who has looked into it, but it would be interesting to compare the glues used in Mongolia at the time vs what was used in North India composite bows.
Bows in Indochina are made in similar fashion to Mongol bows and they do just fine in humid climate. Dai Viet archers operated just fine in their environment
@14:20 just throwing in my guess now, before I go any further. He already gave the answer when he was talking about Saracen maces. It's because the Saracens (Muslims) were using them, and the Church forbade it.
I envision that an archer that was engaged in hand-to-hand combat would throw down his long bow if needed, but an expensive Recurve Horn and sinew bow might be damaged in battle. Personal experience with modern recurve bows suggests that care must be exercised to maintain their performance.
What an underrated comment! Yes the English archers often had to put the bows away to engange in hand-to-hand combat. A composite bow will get damaged when lying on damp ground. In a dry climate thats usually no problem and a mounted archer can avoid hand-to-hand combat or store the bow on the horse/saddle.
A lot of others are still mentioning weather here, I don’t buy that given how laminate works. Your hypothesis makes the most sense to me, application. I’ve been wondering this for years given that recurves were invented in the Bronze Age
I think a bigger problem is what the bows were made of. If you wax a self bow well, its going to seal the wood so no moisture can get in. This makes the self bow very durable. (they found long bows in the Mary Rose, still intact after hundreds of years of being under water) Medieval composite bows have two weaknesses. They are made of animal derived glues and backed with animal sinew. Even if you seal the bow perfectly that sinew will eventually loose its elasticity. And the organic glue (whether hide, or hoof, or other animal product) will eventually loose its flexibility and become brittle. There is a reason why leather is so rare in the archeological record. it rots. Now sealed sinew and glue will rot very slowly, but they will still eventually degrade and the bow will delaminate. This will happen faster if you use it a lot. The material has a finite usable life. Even if you never use it. Wooden bows that have been waxed, don't care about humidity or and are less bothered by heat. They can be stored for decades and not degrade at all.
As for why they never caught on, I think its simple. Cost. A bowyer can make multiple long bows in the time it takes to make one sinew backed composite bow. Time is money, or rather time is higher price tags. Yes, they could have switched over, but, self bows were getting the job done well enough that there was simply no incentive to upgrade. This is very similar to why it took rifles so long to replace muskets. At the time of the American revolution it was difficult to produce a musket barrel able to hit target accurately let along produce accurate rifled barrels. Rifles took a lot of time and hand fitting to get accurate. It was only when new barrel boring and rifle cutting machines came along in addition to the Minié ball which sped up loading that rifles stopped being a custom specialty weapon and became universally adopted. (mostly) Also remember that most of Europe was not that rich and often had to go heavily into debt to fight something that would have been an insignificant skirmish in WWII. Self bows were (relatively) cheap, easy to source, your troops already knew how to use them, and they did almost as good of a job. there was simply no incentive for European sovereigns to go even further in debt to get a weapon (composite bows) that were only somewhat superior and that required teaching your infantry a whole new manual of arms for. Because you don't shoot composite bows the same way you do self bows. There is simply not any incentive to change. Self bows were "good enough". It was only with the coming of gunpowder and better infantry formations that European kings changed. Because they had to or be overrun.
@Wastelandman7000 he was just explaining in the video, Hungary is just as wet as France and they used strictly composite bows. The mongols lived in the most extremes of wet, freezing and hot. Heat breaks down materials too. The difference is rather the army consisted of horse archers or not. If your archers are mostly infantry engaging at close range, long bows do the job. I think he fully established his argument by pointing out that India, who used mostly composite bows, used long bows for their foot archers.
Didn’t a lot of western peasant archers etc also have to own and maintain their own equipment, and a peasant would own straight bows and easier to maintain….as opposed to the ottomans who would have had standing armies, or large armories to outfit conscripts?
Matt, hope you see this comment. In the 4th-6th centuries, the Eastern Roman/early Byzantine military had already adopted composite recurve bows due to contact with Huns, Avars, and Bulgars. Such bows were used for hunting all across Europe. My opinion is that the reasons were mostly logistical, similar to why early iron weapons replaced bronze weapons, because when you need time and different materials to create something, simpler materials are preferred.
Yup. For reenactment purposes, I spent a weekend searching for imagery of archers, and using an Austrian image database and restricting my search to 1250-1400, almost all the images of bows it came up with depicted short ( about knee to chin) recurve bows, often with different coloured tips (indicating possibly composite construction). So they were known, and widely used for sports and hunting in continental Europe. Because that absolutely makes sense, these are applications where you want a light, small, efficient fast package, no matter the cost. In a military application, it makes perfect sense to use longbows, because speed of procurement, built material efficiency, and price are more important for something that needs to be just good enough, as long as it shoots extremely heavy arrows, which the longbow is arguably good at.
I'd also imagine that when you consider your troops cheap and expendable, you give them cheap stuff. A timeless lesson on the 4 reasons why you get issued something made by the lowest bidder: 1. Someone stupid made a political decision, not a tactical one because HE'S not gonna use it 2. Someone stupid was being too cheap in general 3. Someone didn't want good stuff pointed back at them in the event of rebellion by the Poors 4. Someone didn't fancy you were gonna live long, so why bother buying you something better
Plus procurement wouldn't be as much of a deal breaker in that context since the Byzantines actually had a professional military that was outfitted by the Emperors whose pockets were much deeper than those of their Western counterparts. Centralized government FTW lol 😂
It was a composite construction, mind you. Sanmaiuchi (three-piece) bows were developed by the 12th century, at the start of the feudal age. The core was wood, and used strips of laminated bamboo. The design came from China originally around the 10th century.
The weapon of choice is the one you know how to use, to use well, to know it's weaknesses and strengths, to repair, to replace, and of course it needs to be affordable. Superior skill and numbers can defeat superior weapons. Thanks for the excellent video examining many of the angles and facts on the question. Well done.
Tradition, "it's what we use." As you said, everyone from Finland, Hungary and Turkey, eastward used composite recurves. Successful encountering the same level of technology western European Bowmen faced.
This can be thought of as a delay: since the archers (peasants) would be distrustful of the new, the adaptation could take more than a generation. And by the time western Europe encounters recurve bows in large quantity and for an extended period, the handheld guns are just around the corner, if not already there.
I also think there was some argument that longbows were disposable and used in larger numbers and would be drawn to breaking point frequently which supports your argument or if there is any historical evidence for this, but it would make sense that you could take multiple longbows with you and draw them as far as possible to get as much force out of them as possible so having a backup of something cheaper that you know you're going to use to breaking point makes more sense than an expensive bow that you're trying to get as much draw weight and power out of. So disposability is a strong argument, pull them until they snap, when they do pick up the next one and repeat the process. No big deal if you destroy them because they're cheap to make.
Native American relative commented on his grandfather making and hunting with self 23:07 bows at once would not spend a lot of time finishing a longbow because he would usually carry extra because he felt they would fail eventually but then he would spend more time making a fine arrow
Good presentation. I started archery with wooden self-bows made in the late 1930's my mother used for target shooting. They all eventual wore out and broke. Later when I was in High School, I bought a Browning 54-inch 45-pound draw weight composite recurve bow and a Colt long recurve bow with a 28-pound draw weight also of modern composite structure. With the Browning I was shooting from a city block away from the target several times. One day I missed the standard round archery target the arrow went through 2 bales of straw then through the near garage wall and was stopped almost through the opposite wall. Those were with what we called field points with a sharp point. Good killing tool when silence or a lower noise level might be needed.
Italian high altitude yew feels like a steel muscle to shoot. Beautiful. old tree's , close growth rings. A top military bowyer is recorded making a warbow in an hour. Practical .Also arrows were heavey to launch and devestating to what ever they hit .they were ,generally not a cavalry weopen but occasionally used by mobile shock troops. a natural for forest people.recurve tips were added to longbows occasionally. More flick.
I think you're mistaken on the statement about rain/weather impact. the Turkish, Indian, etc. typically waged war during the dry season. sure, they had monsoons, but not at the same time their bowmen were marching. meanwhile, the English and French would have been waging war in conditions that are consistently wet.
You are asking almost the right question. Just phrasing it a little bit differently, given one of your own statements, would add another layer to why the longbow predominated in Europe. As you noted, in the 13th century, longbows were perfectly adequate to penetrate the chain mail that was predominating form of armor. But what about the following two centuries you need to look at mounted knight. You simply could not armor you horse sufficiently to stop arrows to the same degree as his rider. So at least at first, the longbow, while not the perfect weapon, mostly worked. If there was a small nucleus of well armored knights, that's what pole weapons were for. By the time you are seeing full gothic foot plate, like Henry VIII's suit (he was a beast physically, people forget that), now gunpowder and hand cannons are starting to become available. So countries with long arid seasons had already developed recurved composite bows. The Eoropean longbow was good enough for footb soldiers. Plus, this will dovetail into another cost factor. Standing armies. You have to train to become a competent bowman. You also have to maintain currency. I will argue that it actually takes more practice to both become effective with a bow, and to maintain that effectiveness. Having shot composite bows, a lower weight selfbow, black powder rifles, and modern firearms, at least for myself. I will state that my accuracy deteriorated fastest with a bow if I didn't practice. So what does that have to do with the choice of bows. In Europe you can have essentially yeoman, and even better off peasants, having a bow that they keep and practice with. When it comes to a much more expensive piece of hardware, I suspect that the rulers in many countries would have been loath too entrusting that expensive a piece of kit to a lowly commoner. Plus there is another problem. The paucity of gold in much of Europe. So while the British might be able to order a sufficient number of recurve bows to equip their yeoman with, does the treasury have the money to afford that? The other countries mentioned were largely along the various trade routes between Eastern and Mediterranean Europe , the Middle East/North Africa, and Asia. The latter two had a much larger supply of hard currency. It took the Spanish and Portuguese empires, and their subsequent plundering by other European nations, to really make a substantial difference in the amount of hard currency and trade going on in Europe. There is one other huge advantage of the transition to gunpowder from archery. For at least the first couple of centuries, a skilled Archer with an excellent composite bow could outperform the majority of smoothbore gunpowder weapons. But for how many shots? I just watched one of the archery videos from another content creator, and the typical English Archer carried two sheaves of arrows, or 48 shafts. Skilled fletchers were in high demand. Now. consider the cost of 48 arrows. They require forged arrow heads, straight shafts of uniform wood of the right diameter, and matched fletching. Which also has to be glued on. The arquebus takes small lead pellets, which require a fraction of the effort. Now a longbow is definitely cheaper than any firearm to make. Composite bows, not so much. But the iron/steel arrowheads were definitely more expensive and difficult to make than a simple lead ball. Once they discovered how to make corned black powder and special jigs to cut rifling into barrels precisely, the bows days were numbered. People forget about the sheer bulk of transporting sheaves of arrows without damage, compared to a small keg of powder and several ingots of lead. Each rifleman does have a custom mold to make their lead balls, but if you look at the amount of equipment required to make arrows, again, it's much simpler. Heck, except for the safety issues, making gunpowder is probably going to be easier than the manufacturer of quality glues necessary to both create the composite bow, and the arrows.
I don't really think time is a determining factor. Humidity ruins everything. A longbow certainly wears out less, but that's because it's a simpler and more robust bow overall, not because it's proportionally more resistant to humidity than a composite bow. Even in a dry environment, a longbow would last longer than a composite bow. So, that's not simply the reason.
@Doobster406 it is a lot easier and quite doable even with little expience. And there was plenty of experience around in Britain at the time. It was quite feasable to make a resonably good long bow in England at the time even as a farmer (I've done it as a city boy with some help and very little experience in making anything really), wheras a recurve bow definitely requires a skilled craftsman. The longbow is an extremely simple instrument of war.
The main problem in my opinion was the cost of manufacturing them and the time it took to manufacture them. Korean bows are known to be the lightest and most compact yet most powerful in the world of composite bows. Issue was, it was expensive for them to have to source the several different materials required for these bows.. there are many records of Koreans having to import horns from overseas to make these bows because there simply weren’t enough in Korea and it was an exotic and high cost material. they also took several months to make.. waiting for the materials to bind and for the fish glue to cure was quite a process which took different seasons. The fish glue was also part of the problem why these bows lost durability in the damp/humid type environments. Koreans used to purposely avoid fighting in wet seasons because this reason. These type bows perform best in dry conditions. There is no doubt these are superior in almost every way. They are compact, lightweight, and scientific in design in the way they store energy within the limbs (much like the mechanical compound bows do today). Their compact size also allowed for horseback archery. Which we all know how effective it was. They do however have flaws. I guess no one weapon system is perfect.
Ahh, fish glue. Yes, as an artist, I use fish glue today. It's reversible when wet and would easily undo a recurve bow in the rain. All of that time procuring the raw materials and constructing the recurve bow for naught. I'm surprised they didn't use Elmer's glue.
@davidhunternyc1 yeah.. fish glue is extremely strong except when it’s damp lol I’m not sure if they had access to other type glues in Korea back then. But these type bows were generally made with animal glue. Gelatin was a very useful material back then.
That laminate process you quickly mentioned intrigues me, I want to make my own crossbow, but I'm experimenting with self bows made of ash wood first, then moving onto recurve, and eventually I'll be experienced enough to craft my first crossy with a safe understanding of my optimal materiel and its reaction under different loads. I am not just looking into wood and have recently improved one of my self bows with a carbon composite spine it hits way harder with less effort because the load decompresses with way more conviction. I think if I can find a material and layering formula to combine with an ergonomic design, I'll be able to make something that can rival modern archery abilities.
If you actually break down the physics of a bow, it is an energy efficient weapon regardless of shape due to an assymptotic relationship between the separation of the string notches on the end of the bow and the position of the arrow notch. Most energy lost is due to deformation of the bow and string. Dramatic shaping is not actually meant to improve efficiency but to increase total stored energy for a given maximum draw weight. The elaborate shapes of eastern bows enable a comparitively flat force-draw curve for maximum energy storage for a given draw weight. The most extreme example, the manchurian bow, actually accomplishes this by sacrificing efficiency. It is very bad at shooting light arrows fast and far (energy efficiency is actually very dependent on arrow weight, with higher efficiencies easier to achieve with heavier arrows), but is excellent at lobbing big and heavy arrows.
the energy efficiency is related to the mass and velocity of the limbs at the time of arrow leaving the string. In a long bow, the limb tips are moving at the same speed as the arrow and that is wasted kinetic energy. A recurve bow has the limbs moving at an angle so the limb tips are not moving as fast as the arrow when the arrow leaves the string. therefore less wasted kinetic energy. This shows up in bow recoil. A long bow of a given draw has more recoil than a recurve.
@miltonboden The limb tips of a long bow do not move at the same speed as the arrow when the arrow is released. This can be verified by drawing out the relationship between the tips of a bow and the arrow notch and doing some trigonometry. To summarize someone's thesis I read 10 years ago: In a ballista (simplest bow-like weapon) with perfectly rigid limbs and a perfect bowstring, the limbs will be stationary when the arrow is released. However, you start losing efficiency when your model adds more points that can flex... Once these non-idealities come into play, things like the mass of the limbs and mass of the projectile start to matter somewhat. More broadly, ancient and medieval projectile weapon technologies usually have some highly efficient energy transfer mechanism. The other popular one is the stall point of a double pendulum system (slings, atlatls, trebuchets, mangonels)... Double pendulum stall points can be very efficient but the tuning is more complicated...
Howard Hill, longbow hunter, may have stated the answer when asked why he didn't use a recurve. He said he couldn't shoot one accurately enough under hunting conditions. He also said that 25 of the best bow hunters he knew held the same opinion. Long bows are smoother and more comfortable to shoot as well as being less 'sensitive' than shorter recurve bows. Under the stress of relatively close battle conditions the longbow may just have been easier to shoot accurately.
Like your answer. No popping down the local shop or supermarket. Hunting must have been required learning and knowledge to feed your loved ones. If I did live in medieval times then I would want a weapon that could double up as a weapon of war and a weapon to hunt game for to feed my loved ones.
@Gerrygambone Hunting in the late medieval period of England, Wales and probably most of Scotland was for the land owners i.e. the nobility. Most other people were farmers, fishers and a few trades people. They got their food as a share from the farm, sea or what the Barrons gave out.
Modern non-compound hunting bows are recurve bows. Thus, Howard Hill likely could more comfortably shoot longbows because of what he is used to from his cultural familiarity, training, and practice. The 25 of the hunters he knew were probably Westerners who practiced with the culturally more popular longbow-selfbow. Different recurve bows have very different types of force curves and sensitivities. Manchu bows for example stack a lot of weight upfront in order to shoot heavy arrows effectively, while Turkish bows have a more gradual weight curve. Manchu recurve bows are huge and are almost as big as a longbow in size. Some longbows are actually recurved as well (and some English longbow designs have a slight recurved tip).
@GerrygamboneIt's quite likely that hunting your dinner with a heavy bow - deer, boar, wild goat - would have been illegal for most folks. Common folk could snare rabbits, but were banned from hunting large game.
Thanks for putting this long form together, Matt. As an Asiatic archer and composite bow shooter, I've had to explain a lot of these points to my Western viewers. I was going to do a shorts series on this. Would it be alright if I reference this long form for them as well in my shorts?
The longbow was like the Sherman Tank. It wasn't the best at everything, but it was produced and deployed in huge numbers. The Sherman could often be repaired by their crew, who were often farmboys used to working on tractors. The longbow was also something that could be deployed in large numbers and maintained by farmboys used to working with wood on the farm.
The Sherman actually was the best at a lot of things when it was first introduced, and remained the best at a few things like target acquisition for most of the war.
And he ignored the argument of longbows being able to fire heavier arrows and if heavier arrows are better at armor penetration. Instead he essentially just said _these other guys these other bows, so they had to be just as good._ No debunking was done there. Claiming we debunked something when we clearly just avoided the entire point of the argument, is just silly at best.
Hi Matt, Since you asked for the audience's takes, I'd like to share mine. First off, I'm a member of a Historical Archery group in the Philippines, and these are the kinds of things we study. We have a bit of a diversity in shooters and expertise in different kinds of Asiatic archery such as Turkish, Chinese, and Japanese, too. While I don't necessarily represent the group wholly, and I would like to disclaim that I am no scholar, I can offer a humble bit of insight: (again, these are insights/theories) If I had to boil it down to the simplest reasons, my theory would be that Western Europe didn't adapt it due to "cultural differences." Though weather, terrain, and resources would most likely have been factors, the way I see it, it's mostly becuse archery has evolved in different ways in different cultures. Western Europe simply had evolved their archery their way, while the Asiatics had evolved theirs in their way, and either of their respective ways have worked for them. I think the question they would have asked was "Why should we completely re-learn how to make and shoot bows when we could just improve OUR way of making and shooting bows?" It most probably took the respective Asiatic cultures GENERATIONS to be as efficient with their bows as they were. It was very much part of their culture. By the time Western Europe had interacted with Asiatic Archers, they had already had their way of doing things. And it’s like you said, these bows were used significantly differently. Western European Archery and Asiatic Archery had different levels of significance to how they fight in wars. Asiatic Bows were arguably superior to Western Bows because Asiatic Archers were arguably superior to Western European archers because they (arguably) played bigger parts in their warfare. Even if the Western Europeans would recognize that Asiatic bows were superior to theirs, simply switching their bows would not have done as much as completely re-training their troops how to use them to their full potential. It's not so much about the bows as it is more likely about the respective culture's archery. I hope that provides a lot of insight! If you’re interested in connecting with my group for anything, let me know by replying to this, and we can reach out to you via e-mail :)
Love this humble insight. I definitely agree that culture and use plays a big role in things. Kind of funny just hearing about the history of foods like potatoes and tomatoes getting introduced into the old world and no one really knew what to do with them. People tend to stick with what they are familiar with and sometimes culture and tradition can misconstrue facts. These longbows are bigger, sturdier, and heavier to pull, they must be better than these shorter, thinner, and lighter bows.
Asiatic bows only reached their height of development with the steppe tribesmen, who used a "Composite" recurved bow, horn on the inside to push, Sinew and leather on the outside to pull - to give a heavier bow that was short enough to be used with great Flexibility on Horseback. BUT they were herders and nomadic people, who had to defend livestock and hunt daily as they moved and followed the grass for their herds. So they used their bows during peace time, as a tool of their trade, each herdsman probably having a working bow and spares, and they used it throughout the year, year after year - plenty of time AND reason to refine their bow technology. War was not their primary motivation, defending livestock and feeding themselves, was. Their recurve bow relied LESS on the good quality of wood (which could be rare in the Steppes), and more on the other materials and skill of the bow-maker, quality of the glue (make from Sinew), and took longer to make (from 6 months to up to 2 years) , but they could afford to wait, because they would have more than 1 bow, and bows were passed down from father to son....bows were repaired, bows were serviced, re-shaped, re-lacquered continuously. The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Indians didn't even come close to that level of investment in the development and upkeep of their bows.
Exactly, my same thought. And we can take our societies as examples too. how many things we do are actually not ooptimal, we also know that, and still, no change happens. Because of many 'stupid reasons", and if they exist now, why wouldn't it b the same for the past. People being against progression, people being used to their traditions and habits, people that produce the item and in no way would want to get replaced so they bribe their clients. Like we're human, no robits, unfortunately xD
His ignorance however is not very refreshing. The colonised Welsh were the ones who did most of the longbow work for the English because.... As we can read people in Wales was so impoverished that they would fight for the English as mercenaries just to have some bread and cheese on the table Do not read about Welsh history it is too depressing
As a psychologist, i think culture is a big part of it. The simplicity of recognizing someone by their type of gear is very valuable. Belonging to your own group and using/owning/carrying/displaying culturally significant objects, that mark you as being part of that group, is a key part of identity and a driver of in-/outgroup effects ("We vs. Them"). This alone (not wanting to be seen as a foreigner or enemy or any other outgroup) is reason enough to resist innovaton. We see the same pattern play out in different times and societies all around the world again and again, so it makes sense to me that this would also play a role in the adaptation of medieval weapons technology.
I think the fact that longbow practice was required by law on Sundays (after church service) further reinforces the idea of that cultural separation of the Christian vs. the Saracen. Many archery clubs still practice today on Sundays, occasionally on grounds near churches out of tradition.
I suspect culture is a very large part of it, tradition is I'd suspect an even greater driver of why the 'known' 'long-used' 'familiar' longbow was kept when there were more efficient and arguably better options. They worked, everybody knew it, their great great grandad used to use one just the same.
@LyingforcashI totally agree, and i didn't specifically mention tradition, because in my understanding traditions are a part of culture, or in some cases tradition and culture are almost synonymous concepts. Culture is what results out of a sum of traditions (plus a few other things)
Northern Europeans were introduced en masse to the recurved bow, during the Crusades and occupation of the Holy Land. The decision by the English to fully embrace the longbow was certainly not based on ignorance of alternatives. Expense, ease of manufacture and maintenance are pretty good reasons to adhere to what already works for you.
I'm thinking that the maintanence is a bigger factor than we often think. Even today trying to keep modern composites alive in a very humid climate is a pain.
@ericcampbell9470 Yes and no, remember that there were hundreds of years between the crusades and the Roman Empire, and knowledge was very easily lost over those centuries, especially when the majority of the population is illiterate
I find “don’t Need” and good enough a compelling reason. Jump to WWII when the Thompson submachine gun was replaced with the “grease gun”. The latter was cheaper, and easier to make/quicker to produce, and would do the same damage at close range.
Well, the grease gun wasn't just cheaper than a Thompson, it was also lighter, more compact, easier to use accurately (due to the lowered rate of fire), and it reloaded a lot faster. Once they fixed a couple early model flaws, it was a better weapon all around.
Some comments seem to think flat shooting a long bow would have more power than a recurve for close range. This is absolutely not true. A recurve is superior in range because it generates more power. So is also better than a long bow at close range. The reason stated in the video isn't that longbows are better at flat shooting, it's that they are sufficient and cheaper.
Not entirely correct. Composite bows are better for distance because the *return speed* of horn and other components of the composite is *faster* than that of wood. That is to say, if it is bent and then released (with little or no load resisting it) it will return to the original shape faster. Not necessarily that it will do so more *forcefully* . The wooden self bow doesn't return shape as swiftly. That means that when shooting a very *light* arrow, the composite bow will have a much greater initial velocity. But with very *heavy* arrows, it it the bow's *force* (determined primarily by draw weight) rather than its *return speed* that is the primary determinant of initial arrow velocity. When using very heavy arrows, the composite bows have very little advantage over the longbows. The same is true of modern compound bows: they have EXTREMELY fast return speeds, but not all that much draw weight. Which means that with very light fiberglass or carbon fiber arrows, they can generate very impressive velocities. But if you were to put a medieval English war arrow on them (or an arrow of equivalent weight), they wouldn't perform meaningfully better than the longbow.
@bronco5334More weight more energy I think an English longbow can shoot a heavier arrow faster if the draw weight is substantially more on the longbow
@workhard124 No. You're missing the point. The return speed of a material is the "speed limit" for how fast it can launch a projectile. Horn has a faster maximum return speed than does yew wood; spring steel has a faster yet return speed. The return speed is as fast as they can snap back into shape when released from tension, even if there is NO load on them (IE, no arrow at all). But under increasingly heavy loads (heavier arrows), the return speed matters less, because they don't have the force (draw weight) to get the arrow up to the return speed before they reach their rest state. And in that scenario, higher return speed doesn't really matter any more (IE, composite bows have no meaningful advantage)
@bronco5334geometry. The longer limbs can apply the force better against the heavier arrow, allowing heavier arrows to maintain speeds closer to bow max. Heavier arrows for a given speed have more energy and can be more readily constructed to dump that energy in the target rather than wasting it with over penetration.
In The Bowyers’ Bible there’s one section (I think in vol 3) where the authors sit around and ask what bow type they would choose if they could only have one to keep themselves and their family alive. They all chose long d-shaped bows like the english longbow. Admittedly they were thinking of the best bow for a subsistence hunter, but their reasoning holds up for war bows too: ease of construction, durability, and reliability. As a bowyer who mainly builds traditional all wood bows, I can say that composite bows are 10 times more work for something that is only marginally better than a simple straight limbed bow. I think the more salient question is “why didn’t asiatic peoples shoot longbows?” Personally, I think the answer is climate & geography. You only resort to making bows of horn and sinew if you don’t have plentiful bow wood at your disposal. Composite bows are beautiful and I own several, but design is all about making something simpler where possible, not more complicated.
The other thing that bowyers understand is that there is a tradeoff between efficiency and durability. So while Matt is correct that a composite recurve is not necessarily delicate or fragile, when you give the limbs a more aggressive draw force curve you keep them under more stress and increase the likelihood of breakage. Likewise to make a bow more efficient you can reduce the mass of the limbs, which also means there's less material and they can be more prone to breakage. The trick is not to make a strawman out of it and think that composite recurves break all the time and that D-shaped selfbows are indestructible. All bows break sometimes, especially bows made of natural materials, but more efficient bows are somewhat more prone to breakage or are more difficult to make with sufficient durability. If I could pick one bow, it would be a fiberglass recurve. The boost in durability you get when going to synthetic materials is HUGE to the point where the durability difference between different limb shapes is absolutely negligible.
@Mick-uk5uc; Beyond the simplicity and "cost" I think that the Asian fighters, in a society and military based on horses and cattle at "base camp" had access to materials that were common for them, whereas the availability of long, straight Yew, and other species, was not good. Cattle horn, sinews, and smaller wood species, were everyday items... And, travel on horseback, and fighting from horseback, would certainly favour a shorter, more maneuverable weapon. Shorter draw, too. Shorter arrows, easier to carry, not requiring longer straight shafts. Just a thought.
@ThirdLawPair Plus, the fact is that sinew and medieval glue are both derived from animals. Sinew will only remain elastic so long no matter how well you seal the bow. Also the glue will only remain flexible so long. Eventually no matter how hard you try that sinew is going to rot and the bow will delaminate. Even if you never string it. That's simply the nature of primnitive glues and sinew. But they found long bows on the Mary Rose, still intact after hundreds of years of submersion. I highly suspect composite bows would not last that long. This is not to say self bows don't break down too. They absolutely do. Its just a question of bang for your buck (so to speak) Unless you're a horse archer you;re getting more utility from a self bow at a lower cost in both time and materials.
Agree with much of your reasoning. Would also add that a lot of warfare and use of the bow back then was in defending castles and fortifications, where they would be shooting down on attacking forces, so didn't really need that additional range.
So, a traditional laminated recurve bow was constructed using hide glue and sinew. These require extremely long curing times - months - before the bow can be used. In high humidity, the glue may fail to cure at all. Even when dried, it remains water soluble and a traditional composite bow would simply fall apart if submerged. You'll often see in the regions that make this type of bow, that both bowmaking and warmaking are, when possible, seasonal endeavors precisely because of the weather conditions at different times of year, and the impact that has on an army's effectiveness. By contrast, the English longbow is just a tapered stick. A skilled bowyer can turn a dry stave to a complete warbow in mere days, regardless of season. Another thing to consider is efficiency... you make the point that the shorter recurved bows are more efficient, but I disagree - assuming equal draw length, draw weight, and projectile weight, a longbow design is more efficient because the limb tips do not have to move nearly as far when the arrow is released. In other words, less of the stored energy is committed to moving the bow's limbs, and more energy is committed to pushing the arrow. Composite bows often have rigid tips/siyahs as well. The rigidity is needed for side-to-side stability on extreme recurve designs, which necessitates extra mass on the limb tips that the bow must move using its stored energy. In general, a recurve bow will be outperformed in arrow speed by a longbow of equal mass, limb length, draw length, draw weight and projectile mass. The extra length of the longbow also allowed a different draw technique. ELBs are often drawn past the cheek and ear, to 31-34 inches, as opposed to those recurved composites which are usually drawn only to the nose, maybe around 28 inches on average. A longer draw length at the same draw weight will result in a longer power stroke and longer duration of arrow/string contact, and impart more energy to the arrow. You can see this principle exemplified when you look at war crossbows. Later era crossbows drawn with a winch could be hundreds or thousands of pounds in draw weight, but are still outperformed by longbows of 180lbs or less. The difference is the length of the limbs and the power stroke. The crossbow's principle advantage was ease of use, accuracy, portability, and ease of wielding atop cramped castle battlements, but had much less range than a well-made longbow. The advantage of short, recurved composite bows is, as you say, portability and the ability to be used on horseback.
Depending on the draw weight you want, it takes years. I've seen modern reproductions that took 2 years, but apparently Ottoman bows could take 5+ YEARS a piece.
Well said. Another issue is quality of the sinew and glue. The sinew had to be prepared to preserve its elasticity and the glue had to be just right to preserve its flexibility. Any mistakes will result in delamination no matter how well you shellac the bow. Self bows are seaspm bow staves, shape, wax, fit the bow tips, done. A much less complicated process. And for a footman, a self bow is easy to maintain. All you need is wax. On a battlefield simple to maintain and uncomplicated are beautiful. Unless you're a horse archer, a composite bow is unnecessary. Sure infantry can use them, but its not necessary. Its an added expense and the advantages aren't enough to justify the costs.
in fact the animal glue dries pretty fast. I use it on wood, so not on a bow, but it catches after 10 seconds really, i can drop the glued wood after it :) They used kasein and fish glue as far as i know, and those types hold up really well against water. Of course a longbow is much better in rainfall, but a well made recurve bow wont fall apart because a bit of rain falls on it. Or i am wrong :D
Wrong on many points, sorry. Draw length: extent medieval arrows are far from being as long as art and modern practice would suggest, drawing more than 31 inches would be rare, not the mention 34. On the other hand many "composite bow traditions", e.g. Chinese, practice a very long draw, and even the short Turkish bows can be drawn to crazy lengths. EVERY bow tradition that could or had to use a long draw did. Efficiency: the calculations have been done, and not the longbow is not more efficient. The siyah bows are not the best either, but still outclass the longbows. Full working recurve bows (such as Turkish bows) without static ends are even better. And, not very surprising, the deflex recurve bow, especially made with modern materials (i.e. the modern Olympic recurve) has the best performance of all. Two simple metrics: the maximum range in distance shooting is far greater with Turkish bows (up to 800m) than longbows (about 200m), but outperformed by modern recurves (1200m); and for ultimate accuracy at long distances on foot (requiring quick arrow flight and flat trajectories), the best bow is obviously the Olympic recurve too. Only compound bows outperform recurves in accuracy (due to easier aiming) but still don't outperform them in energy efficiency. (and additionally, it doesn't really make sense to compare bows of equal limb mass and length, given that the goal of different construction techniques is precisely to get different limb mass and length) And I'm saying all that as a longbow enthusiast.
If you find tiring shooting a 40 lb bow you are definitely not pretty strong in the muscles used for shooting. May be you are strong in other movements. I am 79 years old and shoot a 60 pound recurve with easy regularly.
As a veteran of the US Army, as well as someone who's worked in corporate American business, my best guess is simply: "because we've always done it this way". Basic human tendency to keep doing the same thing that's worked before in lieu of adapting to change.
This is true but keep in mind change, adaptation, innovation and staying relevant by keeping one step ahead is also an ancient and timeless military tradition, of those militaries that have a history of winning battles and wars at any rate
The important part about the climate is not total annual precipitation, but general humidity and distribution of rainfall. The oceanic climate of NW Europe leads to more frequent (if less concentrated) rainfall and humid conditions, even if the overall levels of precipitation are similar in continental regions. Not saying that that's the main factor in the distribution of bows, or even a significant factor at all (after all, the main point raised in the video makes a lot of sense), but it can't just be dismissed by pointing out that other places get rain, too.
it kind of can be. as mentioned in the video, crossbows at that time were also made from composit material. and in the holy roman empire that was the common ranged weapon, next to guns, bows werent used in warfare over here. And its not like mainland northern europe is more dry than england.
@Glimmlampe1982 Apart from the Atlantic and North Sea coastal regions, mainland Northern Europe has a more continental climate than the British Isles. It's not an East Coast climate like in North America or East Asia, but there is a measurable difference. Again, it's not about total precipitation.
@01SangahyandoI'm not a climate or weather specialist, but according to Wikipedia North Western Europe is oceanic climate and on the same category on the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. For me that reads that the climate is roughly the same. Sure there are local differences, but those are minor differences. If we'd see something like bows used mainly on ships and crossbows mainly on land I'd agree, but not if it's just the difference between GB and Germany
I agree longbows with linen strings waxed and bow treated with oil or fats work better in rainy wet places then glued composit bow with gut, rawhide, or silk strings. So not worth it in Europe.
I think you are still underestimating the effect of weather and dampness. I believe historically there is a clear association between arid regions preferring composite bows and wetter regions preferring self bows. Going back to the Bronze and Iron ages, Greece and Egypt adopted composite bows, whereas peoples like the Celts or Germanic tribes did not. Yes, India has a very wet Monsoon season, but it might be that the Monsoon is highly predictable and there is not very much rainfall outside of that season. So in effect India is an arid region for most of the year, with the exception of the Monsoon. In northwestern Europe there isn't really any time when you can be sure it won't rain, the weather is more unpredictable. I think the idea of English armies adopting laminated composite bows wouldn't work well, because the rain and generally damp and humid conditions are highly prevalent most of the year and are unpredictable, even in summer. So such an army going on campaign would probably end up with soggy, floppy bows that don't function. Hence a preference to stick to solid yew self bows. The other factor is probably significant cultural inertia. It's very clear that steppe peoples massively favoured composite bows, and the Hungarians originated as one of those steppe nomad cultures (all steppe landscapes of Eurasia are arid regions with little rainfall). All of their archery system was dependent on it and so they didn't change, even when they went into somewhat wetter areas (though I think Hungary is also naturally dryer than surrounding areas). It's the same for the Arabs, Persians, Turks and Mughals entering northern India. They were coming from an established steppe nomad composite bow tradition, which they kept. However, I'm not sure I've ever seen composite bows further south into Southeast Asia and the jungle/rainforest zones. Which would be further evidence that composite bows do not perform well in generally humid, wet conditions.
luckily the holy roman empire mainly consists of dry deserts and only had seasonal monsun ;) that argument completely ignores that outside of GB and maybe parts of france, no one was using bows in warfare. the ranged weapon in the holy roman empire was the crossbow... with composite bow limbs. Its not like you cant waterproof these things with medieval meterials
As some else mentioned, in other cultures the archers had higher status, but I would put a different slant on that argument. The archers in English medieval forces were often part time soldiers who were training at weekends while they did their day jobs during the week. These people would not have taken the same care looking after a complex weapon as a full time soldier for whom the bow was his bread and butter and not simply a tool for part time soldiering when he was conscripted by his lord and master.
I came here looking for comments like this. I would also point out that the evidence from texts, Mary Rose replicas, and skeletons, is that the English/Welsh longbow, to be practical, required archers who had dedicated years of training and muscular development to acquire the skill and strength to use them. The video mentions supplying an army during a campaign; it does not mention supplying bows to the large numbers of then civilians who are training themselves to shoot - and become familiar with that type and draw weight of bow - from childhood on.
The two arguments are not exclusive. Eastern archers were often mounted. No European peasant could afford to maintain a horse - or indeed a string of horses. Shooting from horseback also took more training. So to be an archer at all, in those cultures, took money and time that peasant soldiers didn't have. That said, I think it's a little harsh to say that peasant archers couldn't be trusted to look after their weapons. It was common practice to carry them unstrung and bagged to reduce stress and protect from weather accepting the inconvenience of not having the bow ready. Archers would often fashion cruder bows and arrows for themselves and use these for less vital tasks, preserving their best weapons from wear. Even for a part time soldier, skill at archery was a way to put meat on the table or win a bet, not just for war.
Didn't every male back then in England, needed to train archery after they turned 15, i remember some expert saying that, think it was Toby Capwell( lol, as i just wrote that, i hear him being mentioned 16:02) 😅
Great info thanks. I've read that the Welsh long bowmen ambushed their enemies at close range in forests. Long bows can probably also fire longer heavier arrows that hit harder.
I bet it’s something to do with tolerances. The longbow was a defensive weapon, the strung longbow able to loiter longer strung waiting for the charge. The recurve couldn’t loiter strung, but attackers can choose when to string their bow.
8:51 I will give you the best answer you ever heard of... the answer is weather..!! laminated wood loves to split under moisture... the fighting arenas in the Eu's north west, are cold wet and muddy... unless you store the laminated bow in some dry area, indoor preferably, it will split in less then a month... remember they did no have moisture measuring tools back in the day to make them 100% right every single time, during the lamination process, neither the materials they have today that don't care about moisture...
The glues used in ancient composite bows were primarily fish bladder and hide glues, protein based glues which harden by losing water. They could absolutely delaminate if they absorb water.
Other than using them in the rain, it isn't a concern. For one thing you can oil/wax the bows, or just store them somewhere dry. Sure if you use them in the rain you can cause them to delaminate far more rapidly, however the typical bowstrings(using hide or sinew) are as much if not more of an issue in rain. A longbow is better in the rain, particularly if you use a thick plant fiber string that has been waxed, but people generally don't like to fight in the rain if they can help it in the first place.
@BoredomItself people just ignore lacquer or other sealing methods and act like people in the past were dumb and didnt know how to plan around disadvantages
As Matt pointed out: these weren't just used in the desert. There is humidity and rain in India and China. Edit: this comment was for @fuzzy3440 but Ytube keeps putting it here. : (
Sleeping in a hedge on campaign probably meant the long bow was better. It's not just about a day of rain here and there, it's about every single morning having 4-5 hours of dew and that level of humidity.
Kiss: keep things stupidly simple. The self bow is inherently simple and can be made by a skilled bowyer in a few hours. It is also arguably more rugged.
Germany exported so much yew to England for longbows that the tree has become rare (and protected by law)... I always assumed (in part because of other people explaining it thus) that composite bows weren't really used in England (even though the Roman armies used them and brought some) because of the relatively cold and more importantly, damp weather which isn't great for composite bows (making it more difficult to maintain and store them).
The Korean climate is perhaps even worse for composite bows, as are parts of South Asia. & there are sources saying how much of pain it was to keep composite bows in good condition. I agree weather is part of the reason Western/Central Europeans used yew warbows.
yet germany isnt so much less humid than GB. And the composite crossbow was the ranged weapon then. somehow everyone looks at the english longbow and imediately forgets that pretty much no one else in western/central europe used bows in war, at least in the HRE they relied on crossbows
During the first two minutes of the video I took a quick dive, while skipping everything the AI had to say, to the history of Asiatic archery and recurve bows in Europe and found out before 5:42 that recurve bows were common in europe all the way to Bar Hill on the Antonine Wall in Scotland due to the fact that recurve bows were the standard weapon of Roman Imperial archers. Another thing which I found out during two minutes of surfing was that recurve bows were common in drier countries, which England is not, so laminated recurve bows required dry conditions. Straight long bows suited better in wetter areas of the planet. Recurve bows were also basically the standard bow of the indigenous people in the North American continent, especially on the west coast.
You missed the part where Matt talked about rain. While the composite bows were more prone to water damage, it wasn't really a problem with the right materials and maintenance. Culturally mounted archers were more of an elite warrior, trained from a young age to achieve both horsemanship and warbow archery. In comparison the English longbowmen for example were mostly drawn from lowborn peasants, the general population of the time and most likely had to buy and replace their own bows. So it's about more than just rain and durability, it's also tied to cultural and military reasons.
@GamelessOne English longbowmen were not lowborn peasants, they wouldn't have been able to afford the bows or the arrows to train with. That is a common misconception. English longbowmen were pulled from the Yeoman class, a class of people just below knights, not quite nobility but far from poor peasants. They had to own their land (usually about 100 acres), or were townsmen of equal wealth, and often served as minor government officials such as bailiffs, local tax collectors, castle Stewards and even sheriffs of small counties.
@salvarsaani Well there's a lot of things that suggest it's not just about the weather, since there's plenty of rain in the places where laminate bows where used all the time.
I've heard stories that Mongol composite bows disintegrated when they invaded Vietnam and lost. I think that the rain and humidity in Vietnam is on a whole other level, though.
I think almost all glues at that time were water soluble, so that could be true. Another factor could be that Vietnam was not conducive to warfare on horseback.
The Vietnamese histories are about evacuating their towns and going deep into the forests and conducting large scale ambushes in close terrain. A story that would sound all too familiar to the Chinese, the French, the Americans and the Chinese (again).... Or the Romans?
I think you’ve probably got it. For what they needed a bow to do, the longbow did *good enough* and was cheaper, easier, and faster to produce/obtain. Extra capabilities only matter if you’re actually going to use them, and if you’re not, why bother paying extra for them? I wonder if terrain played a part in fighting in closer ranges. Long-range capabilities would matter a lot in the open steppe, where there’s miles and miles of fairly flat land with little to block sightlines, but if you’ve got hedgerows and forests and fortifications and buildings and hills and whatnot all around, you may not even get the opportunity to make use of the extra potential range. A bit like a dagger being more useful at grappling distance than a pike, or (for a less extreme example) sort of like a cutlass being more useful aboard a ship than a cavalry saber would be.
Probably. Though it was mostly they used archery from horseback. If you're launching arrows on foot a composite only offers you marginally more range and power. The composite bow is superior in range and power but it also costs a lot more in time and materials to make. And is a lot more sophisticated. Getting the right kind of sinew the right kind of glue and sealing the bow properly are all far more technical than shaving down a wooden stick to the appropriate dimensions. If you screw up a composite bow, its going to end badly. Its much harder to screw up a self bow. If you try really hard it can be done of course LOL Its just harder. And given that Europe is covered in castles, often in difficult to attack positions each of which has to be neutralized, combined with the far less favorable terrain, I don't think the Mongols would have had it easy. They could have won, but its not a guaranteed victory.
Some Central Europe use these recurve bows, but never made them. Example is Poland we got them from Hungarians, Turks and Mongols. Hungarians bows were based on Mongolian bows design. To design and make recurve bow could take up to a year as presented by many bow makers. Also they were carried in waterproof cases. Materials vary depending on geography of the country of origin. To learn to shoot with recurve bow takes months, to learn use now from the horse even longer. Hungarians are master in hits mounted archery and bow making among European countries.. My bow was made in famous workshop Grozer using some traditional material and some modern. Just 400Euro. Made of all natural material over 1-2K Euro
You are doing a great job! I like you work. One year ago I had the opportunity to visit Nürnberg. When I saw this old medieval fortresses in the city core, I rembered your mentions of the city as a medieval hub of armor and weapons industry. I immediately thougt …. Ok you can still see that in the City. Thank you for that. 👍
The tactics may have been a factor, but the socio-economic structure of medieval England may also be relevent; the Normal conquest replaced Anglo-Saxon aristocracy with a French style feudal system, but with a reduced aristocracy (Normandy was much smaller tha Enlgland) which, having more land, was more individually powerful, less centered on the crown, and more autonomous (the Magna Carta is an example). As such, aristocrats were less pressured into spending money on the men-at-arms they sent to fight the king's wars, sending them with little armor, and just the normal bows they used for hunting, poaching etc. Also, there were few ways of measuring the efficiency of a bow then, so nobody knew. Englishmen just assume their bow, that the bow their father made them was somehow better. 20:52
The Yumi was longer at the top to compliment horse archery. It's a whole other question why Samurai didn't use smaller composite bows, when they were primarily cavalry with a lot of focus on the bow. Other eastern and asiatic nations had their own style of fairly short composite bows, but Japan choose to use very long composite bows and adapted them to mounted archery.
I think you missed the elephant in the room: cost. It's way cheaper to make a stick with a string, than it is to import and or make, a composite bow. Especially if you need ten thousand of the things. Very interesting video sir.
Hungarian here. Try riding a horse at full gallop while using your longbow. Try to hit targets left, right and to the front and rear. Recurve bows were custom jobs tailor-made for the user who owned several each designed for different purpose. Some were made for hunting, others were war bows or asymmetrical for horseback archery. Nomads were steppe herders and warriors at once. Their bows were precision instruments and their livelihood. They did not need to arm any peasant army since they naturally formed a light cavalry. Nomads were free men united under a chieftain. There were no peasants. It was a warrior society.
Plus the importance of bows is a bit overstated. The Byzantine chronicles mention that the most important weapon of a Hungarian warrior is the lance. Modern depictions often only show mounted archers with MAYBE a saber also hanging from their belt. In reality they carried a bow, a lance and a saber. Sabers and swords are primarily self-defence weapons used at close range. The number one attempt by militaries of the world throughout history was to keep the enemy as far away from you as possible. Spears and lances were absolutely central to every soldier.
The big difference in rain between England and India is, in India it rains once for a few weeks in the rain season, while in England it rains once per year for around 12 months. The Mongols also came from a relative dry area and it made more sense for them to keep the recurve bow while invading wetter regions, because they were already trained on them and not on longbows and they are better for mounted archers
It was the Welsh longbow since the 6th century.....it had nothing to do with f****** England. Typical English people always ignoring the original British Welsh
Composite bows of various types have been used all over Eurasia, not just in steppes. It doesn't seem to have been particularly climate dependent weapon. Siberian taiga is not an arid place.
Totally wrong. A warrior used two-three kind of his own recurve bow, covered with leather sheats...and tell me which resist the rain better: a simple piece of wood(longbow) OR a mixture of horn, sinews and specifically bred parts of a tree? Well, well...
The Japanese Yumi bow is an extra long recurve bow that was used from horseback. Thus, the Yumi proves that even extra long bows can be used from horseback. However, I suspect the reason archers in some countries preferred long bow over recurve bows is that modern archers say that a long bow is more forgiving to shoot than a recurve bow and thus, they find it easier to be consistent with a long bow and therefore, they can shoot a long bow more accurately more often than they can a recurve bow.
But the only reason it was possible to use a Yumi bow from horseback was because the hand grip was off-centered.. The lower end was way shorter than the top end. Recurve short I would argue. That doesnt automatically mean that a regular long bow (with a center grip) could be used on horseback.
The yumi is a longbow by length but a horsebow by analogy. It was the main mounted samurai weapon. Forgivenes, sound, stability, speed, longevity, are characteristics depending on the bow make and type. Accuracy is all about mileage consitration, skill and training. Samurais, Hindus, Coreans, Chineese meditate with a bow and arrow. It's in their culture, their religion, in the Vedas (look Dhanurveda).
Thank you Matt for this excellent video. This is the 1st video I have seen that makes sense of armour, archery and mediaeval warfare. You not only explain why mediaeval England use longbows as opposed to recurve bows, you also make a great explanation of the balance and use of archery and armour.
Climate also: Wetter weather does not favor any composite bow. A longbow can tolerate wetter conditions better without damage. Plus, materials for good longbows were readily available in northern Europe.
Certainly in England & Wales, the fact that the longbow was pretty much part of every-day life counts for a lot - a great proportion of the population would have had access to one and probably would have had training & practice using one. Also, I suspect, that in large engagements, arrow supply would be a big thing, it helps if everyone needs a similar arrow, so you need one or the other, sticking with what most know & the infrastructure to make & make arrows for makes sense. Cost and number of artisans making them, makes a difference, as does the time it takes 1 artisan to produce 1 finished and battle ready bow. In any case, an interesting video & argument!
@verysurvival I said pretty rainy, not very rainy. According to Google, Finland receives up to 700mm of rain a year. Not a rainforest, but not dry like Southern California
from what I found after a quick search, Finland has about the same amount of yearly rainfall as Germany, around 60-80cm per year, with Germany being slightly less on average. Living in Germany, I wouldn't consider it rainy. England has about double the rainfall...
I just did a quick bit of searching and came up with conflicting numbers for average rainfall in the UK and Germany, but they seem kind of similar according to most figures I can find (it varies more between different parts of each country, than it does between the countries). So no, from what I can see it does not seem that the UK is much wetter than Germany, and if you remove Scotland and Wales, and just consider England, then very similar.
As we used to say in the US Army, Private Joe Snuffy needs to be able to do this task easily. A recurve bow isn't easy to make, and requires an experienced and highly skilled Bowyer to produce one that is reliably powerful. A longbow, on the other hand, can be made by pretty much anyone (I was making rudimentary longbows before the age of 10 with absolutely no understanding of the craft of bow making that could sink a homemade arrow 2" into a tree). The military doctrine of medieval Europe (especially England) was that everyone who bore arms was required to have their own bow and had the skill to use it. Murphy's combat laws comes to mind here in that if it's stupid, but works, it's not stupid. The recurve bow may be better than a longbow, but the longbow can accomplish its assigned task without a much effort. You can make far more longbows than recurve bows in a set account of time, so the concept of quantity being quality all is own really starts to shine. I'm an infantryman by training (8 years active duty US Army), so I greatly respect the concept of volume of fire. It's the difference between a Sherman tank and a Tiger II. One is easily mass produced, and the other is a finely tuned piece of engineering and technologically advanced weapon system. The mass produced one just happened to win WWII.
As a warbow archer, I can tell you that it’s easier to aim and shoot a warbow longbow compared to a warbow short recurve. I shoot a 120lb recurve and a 130lb longbow and the longbow is easier to shoot, more stable and it shoots a heavier arrow faster. Look at Joe Gibbs tests, he’s shooting a 60+ gram arrow over 200fps. Show me a recurve warbow that can easily do this faster. Fact is yew longbows at high draw weights isn’t a slow inferior bow.
Manchu bow, 10 gpp 33" draw, can reach 200 FPS. Though the bow's usually meant to shoot heavier arrows: it casts 16gpp over 170 FPS and 20gpp over 150 FPS.
exactly. i am learning to shoot a modern longbow, and both from theory and practice it is easier to accurately shoot longer bows for target archery (that is flat shooting basically). it is not because the bow is less accurate (if you put them on a machine they are equally accurate), but because human requirements for accurate shooting are different, shorter bows need better control aka positioning, and therefore better training. If a horse bow archer shows same groups in the target as a long bow archer, it means the former is simply a better archer. Imagine someone shooting a trad bow as accurate as an olympic bow archer (or god forbid a compound bow). It means he is a master, and those are students. (of course accuracy discrepancy between a trad bow and an olimpic recurve is MUCH higher than between a long bow and and a turkish bow, but principle is same)
Few points that instantly came to my mind: in medieval arms and armour sourcebook III there is a source about bavarian crossbow men who use horn and sinew for their crossbows which make those crossbow extremly hard/robust the colder it gets. He praises them for it since they do not break unlike other cross bows. Sadly i dont remember the exact source but in one of the contemporary books that talks about tactics against the ottoman empire the autor briefly talks about the bows of the turks which sometimes get weaker in long campaigning because of the climate hence their shooting power gets weaker. Which could be the reverse of the above mentioned source and could hint to the climate/materials playing a role. Im not sure but i heard that the japanese choose to make their bows from bamboo and fish glue because of their somewhat different climate compared to others. Hence why they didnt use traditional composite bows but their own thing instead. I think mike loades in his book "warbow" iirc also suggested that it would be cheaper to make long bows from wood and it would be easier to keep maintained. Maybe this also works together with certain types of climates. Also since the longbow was mostly used by footsoldier it kind of needed to be cheaper whereas the recurve bow was used on horseback which mostly imply soldiers that could afford horses. and then also ties to the tactics like you mentioned in the video.
Bamboo is a very good bow making material. So good that it is widely used by modern makers who are building bows that are otherwise very western I design. It's very common as a backing layer in American hunting long bows.
- the composite bow costs more ( material, time and skill) and is a lot more susceptible to wet weather ( while horn is stable that can't be said of sinew and animal glues). I built my own sinew backed self-bow (with snake skin to give some protection from the weather) and its response to changes in just the humidity is noticeable. Of lesser issue is shorter composite bows take more skill to master shooting - but can be used in more restrictive environments ( forests , horseback ...) - so if your outfitting an army of farmers, that fights on foot in a rainy northern country, which would you go with?
Matt addressed the weather issue in the video. Countries that primarily used composite recurves *also had bad weather* . That isn't a reason they weren't used in western Europe.
I don't know how susceptible to wet weather composite bows are. But I believe your cost argument has a flaw. Longbowmen did take a very long time to train so they could be accurate and pull these heavy draw weights. So they already were a troop type that was quite expensive to raise. I don't know if the higher costs of composite bows makes that much of a difference when factoring in the other costs that come with employing longbowmen.
@pacmonster066 it's part of it - the cultures that used composite bows tended to use them from horseback ( fast moving ) - limiting their exposure time in the field. But I'm open to hearing other's experiences with their composite bows used in the field exposed for long periods ( like archery hunting in northern wet woods) - the indigenous Americans are recorded to have called off fights/hunting if it rained
All the given examples of "bad weather" are in my opinion wrong. Precisely in very cold temperatures, air humidity is extremely low because all water in the atmosphere has been turned to ice. India is a different matter, but I suppose that the extreme humidity is seasonal. In North Western Europe, heavy rain can happen in any month.
@greedygroot Why did you think England banned other sports and cus cheaper, more you by the bow and more ammo to practice with. Also, shad pointed, the less dramatic angle from firing means you could keep practicing for longer without it breaking cus the bow isn't bending as much. It is big stick with less of a dramatic angle at full draw. Also simple to make so the bow maker is a cheaper person to employ.
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"Less expensive, and almost as good for its intended use," is a completely logical and very common explanation for military procurement decisions. An additional dimension to the issue is that longbows were cheaper for peasants to practice with, and archers are likely to be more accurate if the weapons they use in combat are similar to the ones they used in practice than if they are called up for military service and have to use bows considerably different from what they spent years practicing with.
This seems the most logical to me. Recurves are harder to make and therefore probably more expensive. Probably worth if you plan to be a professional soldier, but England had a regiment of all people training so people probably want cheap ones. I've shot both recurve and longbow and admittedly they aren't that different. With less modern materials recurves are definitely better, but not to the point they are going to kill something a longbow wouldn't if you're shooting at a reasonable aiming distance.
When considering this period england didn't really have a standing army, you'd probably just be better off using the longbows all the peasants know how to use. Like sure they'd have the muscles needed to use either which is the biggest part of the training, but you wouldn't want to rekit and spend time getting them used to aiming with the new bow.
This is why the AK-47 became so popular. It was cheap and good enough.
"cheap and good enough for its intended use" is basically the definition for "military grade" even today lol
It's something people always forget that Equipment doesn't just appear out of thin air or is mass produced in Factories during the 11th century.
Longbow as far as I know is also easy to maintain which is another thing that people forget, Recurve bows iirc is also Composite which while powerful is harder to maintain, as just rain and humidity will weaken the bow which defeats the point of the rather expensive Composite material.
There's also one archery video I think from Blumineck regarding aiming in archery which for short isn't like aiming down sight, but more on instinct which doesn't really need to be passed down from grandfathers, however Fathers can quickly teach their sons to quickly learn the basics especially in forms as English Longbows have their own forms to shooting with longbows, while those who don't have such father can still train and learn from other longbowmen which is why the English King banned most sports other than archery.
Describing the classic mil spec fallacy... Because the military uses it it must be more powerful and specialized than the civilian version right? No, it just means that some guy put out a requisition for a thing that solves a problem within budget and that can be produced at sufficient scale.
There's this talented Bulgarian craftsman Stiliyan Stefanov - by watching his channel, one can immediately see how much labor goes into making one of those composite bows....
This is why I love your channel. If you don't know you say so and offer a hypothesis. Rare these days and very well done!
Except he didn't even try to debunk the idea longbows can shoot heavier arrows or not, or whether or not the weight of the arrow makes any difference to their armor penetration ability. All he did was say _these other guys used these other bows, so they had to be just as good._
I'm not saying I know the answer, but I am saying he ignored the entire point of that argument.
Agreed. I think there's enough there for each of us to form our own ideas. Personally, as someone who lives in a heavily wooded area (similar to much of NW Europe during the Medieval times) and hunts with a bow, I can add my take. Shooting a bow in a wooded area compared to say an open field in the Steppes is a whole different experience. You really don't need a lot of range to shoot in the woods because it just doesn't exist in many cases. Even in an elevated position, I don't get a lot chances to shoot at game at distances beyond 50-75m. So, if you can make a cheap bow that has adequate range for your environment, why would you care to upgrade it for more range at the cost of extra resources?
Hungarian here: I think you are right. Hungary's defining military unit had always been light cavalry (or later hussars) because Hungary was a flatland, surrounded by the Carpathian mountains so it made sense to focus on cavalry: each time an enemy invaded, horsemen from all over the country could have reacter fairly quickly. And as you mentioned, the recurve bow works better on a horse.
It is not exactly like that. Between the ancient magyar period and the hussars there is a big gap of 5 centuries in witch heavy knight cavalry was the backbone of hungarian army. Of course even in this time they have horse archers but they where drawn primerally from nomadic nations like cumans, pechenegs and alans.
Türk -AGREE , see u around my citizen 😑
already at 14:00 and i thought that usually Turks in general used bows on horseback, while i think longbows were used on foot, so the fighting strategy was different, but maybe when Turks fought in europe, maybe they used different strategies, but the most prevalent fighting style associated by Turks and nomads in general was shooting arrows on horseback.
An important reason is that in Eastern European and especially in Asian cultures mounted archers where the elite warriors. Bows and other archery equipments were status symbols.The ottoman sultans had thumbrings as royal insignia. The chinese royal guards were horse archers. Or just think about the chinese "baogong" or "precious bow". Meanwhile in Western Europe heavy knights were the elite so here the knightly arms became the symbol of high status. Bows were more like a utilitarian tool of war or hunting. Therefore in the east they wouldn't mind the higher cost and more complex methods of making a composite bow as it was the "top tier" weapon, while in the west they just needed a cheaper, simpler tool to do the job.
And so the lower class troops who were archers in north West of Europe opted for longbow they could afford as opposed to the more technical composite bows
@nathangreig5884 I wouldn't classify them as lower class. They were in the intermediate class between peasant and landed gentry. We would think of them as middle class, people who were high enough that they could be very skilled soldiers without threatening the hierarchy, but still expendable.
@hypothalapotamus5293 Yes, longbowmen were pulled from the Yeoman class, they had to own about 100 acres of land, or from townsmen of similar wealth. Yeomen often held minor political posts such as bailiffs and local tax collectors as well as even local sheriffs of smaller counties. No peasants could afford a longbow. It is a misguided belief that all English peasants were longbowmen.
@robo5013 But that is just England..... there is nothing to suggest France or Burgundy or Spain had such classes. Hell, crossbow were held in higher regard on the cotinenet, like the Genovese.
@robo5013 You got that a bit wrong in one regard. You are assuming you had to be a yeoman to become an archer. But it was also true that skill at archery could make you a yeoman. This is one of the reasons why the bow was celebrated by peasants. Because there where peasant archers and this was one path open to you for promotion. Also, you might not be able to purchase a longbow, but not much stopped you from making one. In fact, they where encouraged to do this.
I think moisture, especially with regards to long campaigning, was more of a factor than you're giving credence to. Archers in South Asia wouldn't fight in the monsoon, but if English and French archers couldn't fight in a drizzle then they'd never get anything done.
The biggest disadvantage of composite bows was that they took a lot longer to build. They were perfectly capable of shooting heavy arrows. Some Turkish bows had just as much draw weight as the heaviest longbows. I'm sure the reason the English used self bows was financial.
another reason ive seen suggested is cultural. Across Asia, bows were a high status weapon. They had been ever since lords of the fertile crescent rode to battle on chariots with bows and javelins. Lords and nobles fought with bows on the battlefield. So they wanted the best possible bows and had the wealth to obtain them. Which meant there was the supply chain and expertise to make composite war bows in every wealthy settlement. And the understanding of how to use them on the battlefield. So when a lord wanted to equip a company of archers, he would equip them with mass produced versions of what he was already using, and have them use their bows on the battlefield like he was.
So in Asia the best bows possible were made by the elites and then that technology trickled down to ordinary soldiers, and then that trickled down to normal civilians
But in western Europe, nobles just didn't use bows in battle very much if at all. It just wasn't the done thing. So when a lord wanted to equip a company of archers, he would get the peasants to use the bows they were already using to hunt with, only making the bows bigger and heavier. And then those peasant archers would use their bows in a manner similar to how they already hunted with them, that is, sneaking up on targets and then shooting directly into their vulnerable points
So west of Europe battlefield archery grew up from peasant hunters, using tech derived from peasant level infrastructure
@archigallus Yes, this is a very good explanation, too. I think the answer is a compound (no pun intended!) of a number of factors, including the one that you and Matt isolated.
obvious. composite bows didn't grow on trees.
Composite bows require more time and material to be made. The bowyer needs to process materials like horn and sinew as well as making glue to bind wood, horn and animal sinew together. It takes about a week to make a composite bow and is put aside for the glue to set up which requires months before the bow is ready. These factors make the composite bows more expensive than the traditional wooden self-bows. Western Europe actually used the composite bow technology to make crossbow prods. In the Middle East, East Asia, Eastern Europe and North Africa, composite bows are the primary weapons of mounted archers. Wooden bows are ill-suited on horseback due to its' great length. Wooden bows require specific length in order to function and will snap during a full draw if the required length is shortened. Composite bows are created to allow warriors to use bow and arrows while on horseback. In Western Europe, mounted warrior fought using swords, axes, maces or lances but not the bow.
They also hate getting wet and getting wet is an issue in the British isles.
It's not just that yew wood was local. Yew has a fairly unique quality in that the wood is incredibly easy to craft with and you could get 6-8 staves out of a piece of wood that might give you 2 or 3 out of the same amount of material from some other source. To say the material is simply local is not doing it justice. You could *massively* produce this weapon which while technically inferior to composite was still comparable. It wasn't just practical, it was a local resource that begged to be used for this purpose. It was also practical in the sense that your civilian population could get a hold of this material and craft their own weapons. This was encouraged as the people who used this weapon often where not professional soldiers and needed to be able to train with their bows on their own time and then often took these weapons which they where familiar with to war.
Edit: I figured I might dive in a bit further 😅. Yew wood war bows when properly made naturally have something of a composite nature as both the heartwood (the part of the cross section that makes up the center) and sapwood (the part that starts where the heartwood ends and goes all the way to the bark) are both excellent materials for a war bow but do different things. One is good for rigidity and strength and the other is more elastic. So a yew longbow properly made with the appropriate ratio's of heartwood to sapwood already has some properties of a composite bow. I can't help but notice that the bow the content creator is holding is a single tone.... wasted potential there possibly. It is also much less finicky then other materials. For example, another wood that is considered to be on par or even superior then yew depending on the specimen is osage orange, a bow material often used in north America for longbows. While osage can technically make a better more powerful bow it requires finding a unicorn specimen that has substantial late wood to early wood ratio in the heartwood (the only usable part of the cross section for a stave). This means that even if you find a quality piece of material, you might get only a single stave out of it and osage is so finicky if you cut into the growth ring on the back of the bow even a little bit this will end with the bow breaking after only being used a few times.
Yeah. There is some evidence that composite bows were much more expense. Yew warbows were pretty cheap in medieval/Renaissance England.
You make a lot of sense, thanks 👍
great comment
Exactly. The Longbow was traditional and was in wide use. To retrain all the boyers in England in the making of laminated bows would be a monumental task.
Italy is a fair walk from England.
19:15 "munitions grade"
In partially boils down to cost and logistics.
It's like the difference between a fancy modern hunting rifle or shotgun, and the standard issue rifle in the army.
The answer is that the enemy of great is good enough. Why adopt recurve bows when long bows are good enough?
Ottoman flight archery record was around 840 meters, in Europe it may be 350-400 meters. Now close that 400 meters without firing back. Some recurve is so small, Janiseries acted as archer and infanrty alltogether. And also very suitable for horseback, and penetration power was high. But very expensive and takes long to produce.
The answer is: It was good enough for the French.
Recurve bows are just so much superior there is a reason why its used in the VAST MARJORITY OF EURASIA.
The only reason why Europe was spared was that the fertile steppe in near Europe is tiny, such that large horde invasions are rare, compared to China or India, where adopting the recurve bow is a necessity.
@CptAeRoTR Instead of maximum range I think the maximum effective range is a better metric.
My guess is: the Mongols adopted composite bows because there are a few trees in the steppe. Few trees means few staves suitable to make longbows. Thus they resorted to materials they had plenty of, bones, sinew and horn.
@MrAranton And you think western Europe didn't have cattle providing all that stuff? Especially like the video noted England imported wood for bows because native forests were all chopped down...
The First Crusade was in 1096 and established the Crusader states of Outremer, Western European military figures were intimately acquainted with the composite recurve bow long before Crecy [1346] and Agincourt [1415], and remained so for many years after.
They employed mounted archers of their own, the Turcopoles, and "the Francs" had access to the technology of making "Moorish" bows if they had wished to take it home to France, England and the states of the Holy Roman Empire; they didn't have to import them, they could have made them themselves. Clearly they didn't, at scale anyway, because they didn't think cost/materials/performance made it worth it.
They did not have a bow making tradition like in eastern europe
actually they did: recurve bows are those that dominate in the iconography of frankish and French military.
Recurve bows were widely used in Irish and Scottish warfare. They were one of the reasons England suffered heavy losses of archers and mounted knights during the Scottish Wars of Independence and the Hundred Years’ War. Their design allowed for denser formations, as the shorter, curved limbs did not interfere with nearby soldiers, and they could also be effectively mounted.
i the video it’s already mentioned. that the technology was known and used at a certain time for crossbows…
@petrapetrakoliou8979recurve not composite
Imo it probably boils down to just different archery and bowmaking culture, the fact that almost all western europe culture is using (for war) selfbow, finger draw or it's variation (and the effect of using the technique, e.g arrow on the left side)
while in eastern europe (mind you, even the cossacks and the rus), and almost all parts of continental Asia, even siberia with indigenous tribes in America also advancing their own composite bow tech,
but there's another catch, even today, composite bow faces the challenge that the traditional bone/hide glue that is used to bind the bow together is reversible through heat and water, which is why in my native Indonesia, it ain't rare to hear someone shooting a genuine hornbow during rainy season and/or didn't maintain their bow properly only for it to delaminate or even blowing off at the range.
I have read that back in the day, this reversibility meant that if a part of the bow broke, you could go to a bowyer and get him to fix it up, glue it up, and you'll be off to war again. they do not have an issue of the warmth and humidity of equatorial tropics, because they are in either the steppe, which are hot and not so humid. Or desert, which are blazing hot and dry. So while it is not even practical to shoot in the rain, just try having a hornbow in england with limited maintenance lmao.
6:57 A Turkish mace was part of a Templars standard kit. They were indeed very common in the Holyland.
Just when I think surely he has covered all the medieval weapons he throws us a curve and blows my mind yet again. Great information thank you.
This sounds like we need a special Arrows vs. Armor where the recurve is pitted against the brigandine setup.
Velocity and arrow construction are going to matter far more than what gets it going.
5:31 I was wondering why the name Roger Mortimer sounded familiar. Then I remembered he's mentioned in A Knight's Tale as one of the opponents.
saaaame!!!
There's also something to be said, against the longbow, is that a higher velocity arrow will be more likely to cut through plate than a heavier arrow, if you have a look at Tod's most recent arrows vs armour, the lighter type sixteen were able to cut into (and in two places through) the plate and brigandine
Matt, here are estimates of active build times in their era with available materials:
Longbow: 1-3 days (8-24 hours) with pre-seasoned wood and is immediately field ready.
Recurve: 1-2 weeks (40-80 hours) followed by 6-12 months curing before field ready.
Simple and fast outranked complex and slow. The war might be over before the troops could be outfitted, or long logistics supply lines behind the army are at risk of being cut off.
Boss level tillering to knock a war bow out in 24 hours! I thought the bottle neck back then was production of arrows, not bow staves?
@bigutubefan2738 For England specifically, the bottleneck was usually getting the required number of boats: very few ports and merchants were overly eager to just have their ships waiting around for the king.
Beyond that, one of the main problems was that the archers were either directly provided by the nobility themselves as according to their obligations, or bought as mercenaries with the money obligated when a noble was unable or unwilling to do. Unsurprisingly, many nobles did not actually maintain the state of readiness they were theoretically required to, given how expensive that was, so a lot of people would be rushing to outfit and/or train the needed soldiers as legally required.
Of course, the Mongols used the recurved bow virtually from childhood, since almost every able- bodied adult male was a warrior. So recurved bows were constantly being produced, then cherished by the user possibly for life.
@bigutubefan2738If you look at the costs, yes. 20 arrows cost as much as a bow according to the various price lists that have survived.
You only really need the shorter recurve if you're on a horse, if you can afford a horse you can afford a 12 month seasoned bow.
So recurve for mounted archers, longbow for foot archers.
I guess in Europe cavalry seemed to be more biased towards being heavily armed and non-ranged weapons.
Speaking as a Turkish American, archer and amatuer HopIoIogist. Archers in EngIand were commoners who bought their own bows for training, and contests, even if they were provided bows in times of war. They couId III afford compound bows as a group, they made or bought bows and when they did it had to be a famiIier design, one they used since ChiIdhood. Turkish horse archers were"nobIe" ish cIass, (Sipahi, Beys, Akinji or TimarIi horsemen or professionaIs ie Jannisaries et aI. Their bows and even arrows were not just more expensive, but works of art, even arrows were decorated. There is aIIways a cIass component to weapon usage in medievaI times.
What is a hoplologist? Google couldn't identify that word or any similarly spelled words in case it was a typo.
Exactly.
@osmium6832 Curious, got a hit to wikipedia (Hoplology) as 1st result on google. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplology
Maybe an issue with being on a different language version of google?
@sitraahra1778 That's very heplful, thank you very much! Google literally gave me a blank page and said "Did you mean hematologist?" lol. I realize now I should have tried again by rephrasing hoplologist as hoplology to have a better chance of getting a hit. Even now, spellcheck recognizes the latter but not the former as a word.
TIL hoplologist is a word. Now I can use it to describe my interests in one word.
lol @ "lets get into the context". Never change Matt
When drawing that recurved bow it seemed very easy to do also it was indicated that the arrows used for the long bow were heavier it doesn't seem the comparison is really like for like .
A Hungarian feflex bow had to be maintained and repaired by the soldier. We know this because there were spare parts in their bags that can be found in their graves. Those Hungarian riders were professional soldiers and it was one of their superweapon, so thez were pros in it. I imagine a long was a much easier weapon to mass produce and hand them, and maintaining was also much easier.
0:25 Thanks for saying it!!
This is such a detailed and complex subject that it’s hard to break down cleanly. Standard explanations for why different bows were used are often too simple, or just plain wrong. The performance differences between the English longbow and composite bows are frequently overstated. The clearest distinction shows up when shooting very light arrows. Yet even John Smyth records English archers in his time shooting flight arrows out to 400 yards.
To keep this brief, here’s my personal take. The biggest advantage of the composite bow lies in its compact size. Material differences matter, of course, but in most designs geometry is the real deciding factor. Composites could achieve favorable geometry while staying small, whereas wooden self bows needed to be larger to do the same.
Modern people often picture northwest European bows as straight-limbed self bows, but contemporary artwork suggests otherwise. Longbows with recurved tips appear more commonly in depictions. In fact, many paintings of English archers show recurved profiles. On top of that, many of the Mary Rose bows show significant reflex. This added performance wouldn’t be obvious once a bow was strung, but it may help explain why those bows were so long despite apparently being drawn to only around 30 inches.
We shouldn’t compare today’s “tired” recreational English longbows/warbows, often showing several inches of set and lacking any induced reflex or recurved tips, to the most efficient traditional designs, like Ottoman Turkish bows.
Just my two cents.
It's actually understated if you believe that one test of a Manchu bow. 82lbs@32" Manchu matched the performance of 160@30" yew warbow. & Manchu bows could be drawn past 32" too. If that test is at all correct, English archers would have been absolutely terrifying with Manchu bows.
@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Keywords "if you believe that one test" lol. Personally, I've never seen any other numbers from manchu bows that come remotely close to those stated by Peter Dekker. Not saying he's lying...but... it doesn't add up. In fact, Peter's numbers match most compound bows lb for lb at that draw length.
@dgriswold93 What other tests of Manchu bows made of traditional materials exist? The kinetic energy involved does match some compound bows, but a higher-end compound can do somewhat better at a shorter draw length & with a much lighter arrow. For a good compound, 82lbs@30" might manage 110-115 foot-lbs at around 330 fps. But yeah, it is surprisingly close & a bit hard to believe. In any case, period accounts do note the high power of the Manchu bow & the design should store more energy than any other traditional bow while also having decent efficiency.
@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Others with natural materials? I know of none. I would love for someone to do that. Don't get what I am saying twisted, materials used does matter, but, it does not tell the whole story. Manchu bows will not magically become 20% more efficient because you used horn and sinew over laminated wood. Geometry matters most importantly.
A good compound will generally not hit 110-115 ft.lbs. at 82lbs at 30". You'd need a full 32" draw for that. About the same as Peters test in fact. In which case, you may exceed those numbers, but some bows would not. For example, Josh Bowmar has done some speed test with his Hoyt Axius Ultra, he reached 99.4 ft.lbs. at 84 lbs and a 31.5"+ draw length. Of course, he could get higher with heavier arrows, but likely not exceeding 110 ft.lbs. None of this is apples to apples though, the real take home is Josh gets 1.60 joules per lb with that bow, Peters Manchu bow allegedly hit 1.65 joules per lb. If we give some grace to low arrow weight with Bowmar's test we can say it would match or slightly exceed the Manchu. But come on, that is a strange outcome. The compound bow manufactured with space age tech in 2023 with every single advantage in materials, f/d curve, engineering, efficiency, and using a handheld release can barely (maybe) surpass a horn and sinew bow?
Every single other traditional bow I've ever seen tested cluster around 0.75 - 1.10 joules per lb. And that includes Ottoman turk horn bows shot with higher grains per pound than Peters test, and nearly 100% release efficiently with a shooting machine! Peter reports 1.65. It does not add up. I do not believe his numbers. It does not pass the sniff test and they make almost no mathematical sense. I would happily be proven wrong though.
Sorry to just word vomit numbers at you...I like talking about this stuff...
The long length of the bow for a given draw length can also be explained by the use of a D profile. The materials properties of wood actually favor a flatbow, which can deform more without catastrophic damage. If they added sinews to the front of a flatbow and started replacing the wood with horn then it starts looking like an eastern bow... So, the economics of the D prophile of the longbow are probably the central question.
Without watching I'm going to guess longbows are; 1, easier, quicker, cheaper to make. 2, function better in adverse weather conditions. 3, weren't needed or used for horse archers. 4, I think the longbow might work better for shorter ranges using heavy bodkin style arrows, not sure about that one. Now to see how I did...
After watching...Yes, mounted archers did usually use composite bows, and point blank shooting. I did read somewhere the Mongols had issues with their composite bow when the went to fight in India where it was humid as well as very warm.
They were sheaper and why would you give an expensive bow to a low class archer when the knights were the elite force? In asia the bow had a lot higher status
Longbows "stack" less when the archer nears full draw. Stacking is a function of the angle of the string from the arrow nock to the bow tip. Stacking is less with longer bows and can make them feel smoother to draw and easier to shoot at higher draw weights. Longbows without backing are stable weapons, while a laminate recurve which could delaminate in humid or wet conditions.
I have one personal theory, that also touches on the "draw weight theory". Recurve bows accelerate faster in the initial arrow release, that's in fact why they fire faster arrows for similar draw weight. That is also with ALL bows the point that puts the most stress on arrows themselves. The "gentler" release from long bow means the arrows themselves can be made to a lower strength. Assuming you are using heavier arrows, it would be easier to mass produce 1000 arrows to that lower specification. It ALSO means that arrow life would be extended, because if you find an arrow that "looks okay" at a quick visual inspection, it probably IS okay. Longbow archers could recycle their/enemy arrows with higher confidence levels than anyone using a recurve bow that may shatter the arrow into their arm. A possible death sentence given infection rates and quality control of the time.
Basically, my theory rests on the crux NOT of the bow itself, which obviously per the video they could have acquired. But of the ammunition quality itself
It's a good theory, but Ottoman? (one of them around that area) largely fired mass volleys of heavier arrows as you might expect from longbows, in their organised composite bow armies.
I feel that this would still be secondary/tertiary to @deejin25's point about the class component to weapon usage, and the various points regarding cost/efficacy. You need to survive most of the battle to be scavenging ammunition, which means your bow still needs to be 'good enough'.
@RhysMaria-LauraElvins fair, but I view them as reinforceing each other honestly. The rich Turkish could afford the luxury of well built and artistic arrows, the Ferrarri or Lamborghini of the Archery World. The low born English were looking for the Mustang or Chargers, something that I don't care I put the wrong gas in its still gonna scream down the quarter mile just as fast. If you cant afford the ammunition costs for your weapon, you're never never going to fire it. Same reason when someone brings a .50cal to a range, its a treat everyone wants to fire. In this case, the ammunition costs are more about risk and cheap production, but even off battlefield training will, maybe more so, would be about recycling arrows
Great point.
@AndyCox-rh5ldI see what you did there. Lol.
I think there is something very important missing here: selecting for projectile momentum (direct shooting with high arrow weights) or selecting for projectile velocity (shooting accurately or over long distances with light arrow weights) for a given draw weight and draw length.
- Momentum: You need a thick bow cross section for high stress /low strain geometry (like an English longbow). The spring characteristic curve (which is usually linear for bows) is flat, which means, for a given draw weight, there is more energy in the power stroke.
However, such bows are also more inefficient for a given arrow weight, as there is more mass in the limbs compared to a flat cross section recurve bow. The efficiency of the bow is arrow mass / (arrow mass + accelerated limb mass). Thus for a bow to be 100% efficient, it has to shoot infinitely heavy arrows or have infinitely light limbs.
- Velocity: You need a flat cross section bow for high strain geometry (like a recurve bow). The spring characteristic curve of such a bow is steep, meaning less energy, but more forgiving for lightweight arrows in terms of efficiency (and probably also in terms of durability).
Just to be clear: With modern materials you can have high stress and high strain. This is why fiberglass backed bows do NOT behave like traditional bows with the same draw weight.
I did work on this for my engineering degree. We measured the spring characteristic curves of different bows (and thus the stored energy in the drawn bow) and then shot them with different weighted arrows, measuring the projectile velocity.
We could then fit arrows to specific bows to maximise the momentum output as the momentum plotted over arrow weight would always give a parabolic function with a clear peak.
However, we could not fit arrows for maximal efficiency or speed as these arrows would have been infinitely heavy (with 0 velocity) or infinitely lightweight (destroying the bow). This is the reason modern tournaments have a minimum arrow weight.
The geometry part of this comment is a little bit conjecture on my side, as we never had enough bows (or other springs) to verify this exactly. It was sadly out of scope for our work.
I hope this helps and sorry for the cumbersome explanation, English is not my first language.
The efficiency formula above is obviously just a way to exemplify the behavior of different bows with different arrows. It is neither practical to measure, nor overly accurate, as there are assumptions in it about velocities in the bow limb mass .
The correct way to measure the efficiency is, as we have done, to measure the spring characteristic curve of the bow (energy input) and the velocity and mass of the shot arrow (energy output).
@dominikvucak4424 what matters is what the arrow achieves. Broad flat arrows for foot soldiers and horses with the barb making it difficult to remove the arrow causing dispute damage on the way out. A booking was for armour penetrative and a deep wound in less well protected parts of the body.
Had a bow considerably underpowered to a long bow, we shot it in a field it was quite poor shooting near straight line, so we shot in in the air just over medium strength it went over a football field distanceand more, my hear sank as I saw it disapear over a solid 6ft fence on a bank onto a path and main road, I was soo fortunate it never did any damage, never took it out again.
@andye4453 that is why you need to have, for bows and guns/rifles, a secured field to shoot.
Very sturdy wall or hill towards which you shoot.
If not available, the line of sight needs to be clear (free from obstacles) over a very long way.
Just join , even for a small time, an archery club. It opens eyes to what you can achieve.
Don't stop archery, it is so much fun
Very interesting work!
Arrow weight is important.
11:00 the Mongol bows notably failed in the weather of Indochina.
Right, it's in the historical records from Mongols trying to penetrate into "India". My understanding, it was mainly a matter of the glues used in the steppe not being suitable for more humid climates.
Water and high heat can be a problem and loosen up the glue used to laminate composite bows. And the mongols did have trouble with their bows losing draw weight in that environment. However, Indochina is a substantially more humid and warmer climate than northwestern Europe, so it still doesn't really answer the question.
@bgall74I am not a bowyer, but I have spoken to a few who can make traditional Asian composite bows and I have heard that the type of glue used to laminate can have a significant impact on the weapons response to humidity. Supposedly fish bladder glues soften up more easily than hide glues. I don't know of anyone who has looked into it, but it would be interesting to compare the glues used in Mongolia at the time vs what was used in North India composite bows.
There is evidence that the Hungarians in the Western Campaign lost battle due to bows becoming unusable due to rain.
Bows in Indochina are made in similar fashion to Mongol bows and they do just fine in humid climate. Dai Viet archers operated just fine in their environment
Very clever and convincing reasoning, thank you for answering this question for me.
@14:20 just throwing in my guess now, before I go any further. He already gave the answer when he was talking about Saracen maces. It's because the Saracens (Muslims) were using them, and the Church forbade it.
I envision that an archer that was engaged in hand-to-hand combat would throw down his long bow if needed, but an expensive Recurve Horn and sinew bow might be damaged in battle. Personal experience with modern recurve bows suggests that care must be exercised to maintain their performance.
Given that European archers fought at closer ranges, they may have used melee weapons more often too
What an underrated comment! Yes the English archers often had to put the bows away to engange in hand-to-hand combat. A composite bow will get damaged when lying on damp ground. In a dry climate thats usually no problem and a mounted archer can avoid hand-to-hand combat or store the bow on the horse/saddle.
A lot of others are still mentioning weather here, I don’t buy that given how laminate works. Your hypothesis makes the most sense to me, application. I’ve been wondering this for years given that recurves were invented in the Bronze Age
I think a bigger problem is what the bows were made of. If you wax a self bow well, its going to seal the wood so no moisture can get in. This makes the self bow very durable. (they found long bows in the Mary Rose, still intact after hundreds of years of being under water) Medieval composite bows have two weaknesses. They are made of animal derived glues and backed with animal sinew.
Even if you seal the bow perfectly that sinew will eventually loose its elasticity. And the organic glue (whether hide, or hoof, or other animal product) will eventually loose its flexibility and become brittle. There is a reason why leather is so rare in the archeological record. it rots. Now sealed sinew and glue will rot very slowly, but they will still eventually degrade and the bow will delaminate. This will happen faster if you use it a lot. The material has a finite usable life. Even if you never use it. Wooden bows that have been waxed, don't care about humidity or and are less bothered by heat. They can be stored for decades and not degrade at all.
As for why they never caught on, I think its simple. Cost. A bowyer can make multiple long bows in the time it takes to make one sinew backed composite bow. Time is money, or rather time is higher price tags. Yes, they could have switched over, but, self bows were getting the job done well enough that there was simply no incentive to upgrade. This is very similar to why it took rifles so long to replace muskets.
At the time of the American revolution it was difficult to produce a musket barrel able to hit target accurately let along produce accurate rifled barrels. Rifles took a lot of time and hand fitting to get accurate. It was only when new barrel boring and rifle cutting machines came along in addition to the Minié ball which sped up loading that rifles stopped being a custom specialty weapon and became universally adopted. (mostly)
Also remember that most of Europe was not that rich and often had to go heavily into debt to fight something that would have been an insignificant skirmish in WWII. Self bows were (relatively) cheap, easy to source, your troops already knew how to use them, and they did almost as good of a job. there was simply no incentive for European sovereigns to go even further in debt to get a weapon (composite bows) that were only somewhat superior and that required teaching your infantry a whole new manual of arms for. Because you don't shoot composite bows the same way you do self bows. There is simply not any incentive to change. Self bows were "good enough".
It was only with the coming of gunpowder and better infantry formations that European kings changed. Because they had to or be overrun.
Hope some of that over-explaining helps. Or at least didn't make things worse.
@Wastelandman7000 he was just explaining in the video, Hungary is just as wet as France and they used strictly composite bows. The mongols lived in the most extremes of wet, freezing and hot. Heat breaks down materials too. The difference is rather the army consisted of horse archers or not. If your archers are mostly infantry engaging at close range, long bows do the job. I think he fully established his argument by pointing out that India, who used mostly composite bows, used long bows for their foot archers.
Your opinions are compelling…particularly…”the evolution of tools being good enough” . Thanks for a great video
Didn’t a lot of western peasant archers etc also have to own and maintain their own equipment, and a peasant would own straight bows and easier to maintain….as opposed to the ottomans who would have had standing armies, or large armories to outfit conscripts?
yes an a bow with 12 arrows was the minim for even the poorest.
Matt, hope you see this comment. In the 4th-6th centuries, the Eastern Roman/early Byzantine military had already adopted composite recurve bows due to contact with Huns, Avars, and Bulgars. Such bows were used for hunting all across Europe. My opinion is that the reasons were mostly logistical, similar to why early iron weapons replaced bronze weapons, because when you need time and different materials to create something, simpler materials are preferred.
Yup. For reenactment purposes, I spent a weekend searching for imagery of archers, and using an Austrian image database and restricting my search to 1250-1400, almost all the images of bows it came up with depicted short ( about knee to chin) recurve bows, often with different coloured tips (indicating possibly composite construction). So they were known, and widely used for sports and hunting in continental Europe. Because that absolutely makes sense, these are applications where you want a light, small, efficient fast package, no matter the cost. In a military application, it makes perfect sense to use longbows, because speed of procurement, built material efficiency, and price are more important for something that needs to be just good enough, as long as it shoots extremely heavy arrows, which the longbow is arguably good at.
I'd also imagine that when you consider your troops cheap and expendable, you give them cheap stuff.
A timeless lesson on the 4 reasons why you get issued something made by the lowest bidder:
1. Someone stupid made a political decision, not a tactical one because HE'S not gonna use it
2. Someone stupid was being too cheap in general
3. Someone didn't want good stuff pointed back at them in the event of rebellion by the Poors
4. Someone didn't fancy you were gonna live long, so why bother buying you something better
Plus procurement wouldn't be as much of a deal breaker in that context since the Byzantines actually had a professional military that was outfitted by the Emperors whose pockets were much deeper than those of their Western counterparts.
Centralized government FTW lol 😂
Feudal Japan also favored the Yumi, a tall asymmetric longbow.
It was a composite construction, mind you. Sanmaiuchi (three-piece) bows were developed by the 12th century, at the start of the feudal age. The core was wood, and used strips of laminated bamboo. The design came from China originally around the 10th century.
The weapon of choice is the one you know how to use, to use well, to know it's weaknesses and strengths, to repair, to replace, and of course it needs to be affordable. Superior skill and numbers can defeat superior weapons. Thanks for the excellent video examining many of the angles and facts on the question. Well done.
Tradition, "it's what we use." As you said, everyone from Finland, Hungary and Turkey, eastward used composite recurves. Successful encountering the same level of technology western European Bowmen faced.
This. Like a 1911 pistol.
My dad used it. It works. I like it. I'm used to it.
This can be thought of as a delay: since the archers (peasants) would be distrustful of the new, the adaptation could take more than a generation. And by the time western Europe encounters recurve bows in large quantity and for an extended period, the handheld guns are just around the corner, if not already there.
I also think there was some argument that longbows were disposable and used in larger numbers and would be drawn to breaking point frequently which supports your argument or if there is any historical evidence for this, but it would make sense that you could take multiple longbows with you and draw them as far as possible to get as much force out of them as possible so having a backup of something cheaper that you know you're going to use to breaking point makes more sense than an expensive bow that you're trying to get as much draw weight and power out of. So disposability is a strong argument, pull them until they snap, when they do pick up the next one and repeat the process. No big deal if you destroy them because they're cheap to make.
Native American relative commented on his grandfather making and hunting with self 23:07 bows at once would not spend a lot of time finishing a longbow because he would usually carry extra because he felt they would fail eventually but then he would spend more time making a fine arrow
Good presentation. I started archery with wooden self-bows made in the late 1930's my mother used for target shooting. They all eventual wore out and broke. Later when I was in High School, I bought a Browning 54-inch 45-pound draw weight composite recurve bow and a Colt long recurve bow with a 28-pound draw weight also of modern composite structure. With the Browning I was shooting from a city block away from the target several times. One day I missed the standard round archery target the arrow went through 2 bales of straw then through the near garage wall and was stopped almost through the opposite wall. Those were with what we called field points with a sharp point.
Good killing tool when silence or a lower noise level might be needed.
Italian high altitude yew feels like a steel muscle to shoot. Beautiful. old tree's , close growth rings. A top military bowyer is recorded making a warbow in an hour. Practical .Also arrows were heavey to launch and devestating to what ever they hit .they were ,generally not a cavalry weopen but occasionally used by mobile shock troops. a natural for forest people.recurve tips were added to longbows occasionally. More flick.
I think your explanation is spot on.
I think you're mistaken on the statement about rain/weather impact. the Turkish, Indian, etc. typically waged war during the dry season. sure, they had monsoons, but not at the same time their bowmen were marching. meanwhile, the English and French would have been waging war in conditions that are consistently wet.
^^^ this... see my comment above
That could be because the monsoons are not just wet weather.
You are asking almost the right question. Just phrasing it a little bit differently, given one of your own statements, would add another layer to why the longbow predominated in Europe.
As you noted, in the 13th century, longbows were perfectly adequate to penetrate the chain mail that was predominating form of armor. But what about the following two centuries you need to look at mounted knight. You simply could not armor you horse sufficiently to stop arrows to the same degree as his rider. So at least at first, the longbow, while not the perfect weapon, mostly worked. If there was a small nucleus of well armored knights, that's what pole weapons were for. By the time you are seeing full gothic foot plate, like Henry VIII's suit (he was a beast physically, people forget that), now gunpowder and hand cannons are starting to become available.
So countries with long arid seasons had already developed recurved composite bows. The Eoropean longbow was good enough for footb soldiers. Plus, this will dovetail into another cost factor. Standing armies.
You have to train to become a competent bowman. You also have to maintain currency. I will argue that it actually takes more practice to both become effective with a bow, and to maintain that effectiveness. Having shot composite bows, a lower weight selfbow, black powder rifles, and modern firearms, at least for myself. I will state that my accuracy deteriorated fastest with a bow if I didn't practice.
So what does that have to do with the choice of bows. In Europe you can have essentially yeoman, and even better off peasants, having a bow that they keep and practice with. When it comes to a much more expensive piece of hardware, I suspect that the rulers in many countries would have been loath too entrusting that expensive a piece of kit to a lowly commoner.
Plus there is another problem. The paucity of gold in much of Europe. So while the British might be able to order a sufficient number of recurve bows to equip their yeoman with, does the treasury have the money to afford that? The other countries mentioned were largely along the various trade routes between Eastern and Mediterranean Europe , the Middle East/North Africa, and Asia. The latter two had a much larger supply of hard currency. It took the Spanish and Portuguese empires, and their subsequent plundering by other European nations, to really make a substantial difference in the amount of hard currency and trade going on in Europe.
There is one other huge advantage of the transition to gunpowder from archery. For at least the first couple of centuries, a skilled Archer with an excellent composite bow could outperform the majority of smoothbore gunpowder weapons. But for how many shots? I just watched one of the archery videos from another content creator,
and the typical English Archer carried two sheaves of arrows, or 48 shafts.
Skilled fletchers were in high demand. Now. consider the cost of 48 arrows. They require forged arrow heads, straight shafts of uniform wood of the right diameter, and matched fletching. Which also has to be glued on.
The arquebus takes small lead pellets, which require a fraction of the effort. Now a longbow is definitely cheaper than any firearm to make. Composite bows, not so much. But the iron/steel arrowheads were definitely more expensive and difficult to make than a simple lead ball. Once they discovered how to make corned black powder and special jigs to cut rifling into barrels precisely, the bows days were numbered.
People forget about the sheer bulk of transporting sheaves of arrows without damage, compared to a small keg of powder and several ingots of lead. Each rifleman does have a custom mold to make their lead balls, but if you look at the amount of equipment required to make arrows, again, it's much simpler. Heck, except for the safety issues, making gunpowder is probably going to be easier than the manufacturer of quality glues necessary to both create the composite bow, and the arrows.
The Ottomans fought countless battles in the Balkans where the weather is also on the humid side and there is no dry season.
I don't really think time is a determining factor. Humidity ruins everything. A longbow certainly wears out less, but that's because it's a simpler and more robust bow overall, not because it's proportionally more resistant to humidity than a composite bow. Even in a dry environment, a longbow would last longer than a composite bow. So, that's not simply the reason.
every boy could make a longbow from material he found around his village for shooting training, but could never effort a recurve bow.
There's a lot that goes into making a self bow properly
Don’t forget the Red Yew Elm!
@Doobster406 it is a lot easier and quite doable even with little expience. And there was plenty of experience around in Britain at the time. It was quite feasable to make a resonably good long bow in England at the time even as a farmer (I've done it as a city boy with some help and very little experience in making anything really), wheras a recurve bow definitely requires a skilled craftsman. The longbow is an extremely simple instrument of war.
The main problem in my opinion was the cost of manufacturing them and the time it took to manufacture them.
Korean bows are known to be the lightest and most compact yet most powerful in the world of composite bows.
Issue was, it was expensive for them to have to source the several different materials required for these bows.. there are many records of Koreans having to import horns from overseas to make these bows because there simply weren’t enough in Korea and it was an exotic and high cost material.
they also took several months to make.. waiting for the materials to bind and for the fish glue to cure was quite a process which took different seasons.
The fish glue was also part of the problem why these bows lost durability in the damp/humid type environments.
Koreans used to purposely avoid fighting in wet seasons because this reason.
These type bows perform best in dry conditions.
There is no doubt these are superior in almost every way. They are compact, lightweight, and scientific in design in the way they store energy within the limbs (much like the mechanical compound bows do today).
Their compact size also allowed for horseback archery. Which we all know how effective it was.
They do however have flaws. I guess no one weapon system is perfect.
So, a Kalashnikov vs. a Heckler & Koch.
@stephen-ngessentially.
Ahh, fish glue. Yes, as an artist, I use fish glue today. It's reversible when wet and would easily undo a recurve bow in the rain. All of that time procuring the raw materials and constructing the recurve bow for naught. I'm surprised they didn't use Elmer's glue.
@davidhunternyc1 yeah.. fish glue is extremely strong except when it’s damp lol I’m not sure if they had access to other type glues in Korea back then. But these type bows were generally made with animal glue. Gelatin was a very useful material back then.
That laminate process you quickly mentioned intrigues me, I want to make my own crossbow, but I'm experimenting with self bows made of ash wood first, then moving onto recurve, and eventually I'll be experienced enough to craft my first crossy with a safe understanding of my optimal materiel and its reaction under different loads. I am not just looking into wood and have recently improved one of my self bows with a carbon composite spine it hits way harder with less effort because the load decompresses with way more conviction. I think if I can find a material and layering formula to combine with an ergonomic design, I'll be able to make something that can rival modern archery abilities.
If you actually break down the physics of a bow, it is an energy efficient weapon regardless of shape due to an assymptotic relationship between the separation of the string notches on the end of the bow and the position of the arrow notch. Most energy lost is due to deformation of the bow and string.
Dramatic shaping is not actually meant to improve efficiency but to increase total stored energy for a given maximum draw weight. The elaborate shapes of eastern bows enable a comparitively flat force-draw curve for maximum energy storage for a given draw weight. The most extreme example, the manchurian bow, actually accomplishes this by sacrificing efficiency. It is very bad at shooting light arrows fast and far (energy efficiency is actually very dependent on arrow weight, with higher efficiencies easier to achieve with heavier arrows), but is excellent at lobbing big and heavy arrows.
the energy efficiency is related to the mass and velocity of the limbs at the time of arrow leaving the string. In a long bow, the limb tips are moving at the same speed as the arrow and that is wasted kinetic energy. A recurve bow has the limbs moving at an angle so the limb tips are not moving as fast as the arrow when the arrow leaves the string. therefore less wasted kinetic energy. This shows up in bow recoil. A long bow of a given draw has more recoil than a recurve.
@miltonboden The limb tips of a long bow do not move at the same speed as the arrow when the arrow is released. This can be verified by drawing out the relationship between the tips of a bow and the arrow notch and doing some trigonometry.
To summarize someone's thesis I read 10 years ago: In a ballista (simplest bow-like weapon) with perfectly rigid limbs and a perfect bowstring, the limbs will be stationary when the arrow is released. However, you start losing efficiency when your model adds more points that can flex... Once these non-idealities come into play, things like the mass of the limbs and mass of the projectile start to matter somewhat.
More broadly, ancient and medieval projectile weapon technologies usually have some highly efficient energy transfer mechanism. The other popular one is the stall point of a double pendulum system (slings, atlatls, trebuchets, mangonels)... Double pendulum stall points can be very efficient but the tuning is more complicated...
Spot on.
Howard Hill, longbow hunter, may have stated the answer when asked why he didn't use a recurve. He said he couldn't shoot one accurately enough under hunting conditions. He also said that 25 of the best bow hunters he knew held the same opinion. Long bows are smoother and more comfortable to shoot as well as being less 'sensitive' than shorter recurve bows. Under the stress of relatively close battle conditions the longbow may just have been easier to shoot accurately.
Like your answer. No popping down the local shop or supermarket. Hunting must have been required learning and knowledge to feed your loved ones. If I did live in medieval times then I would want a weapon that could double up as a weapon of war and a weapon to hunt game for to feed my loved ones.
@Gerrygambone
Hunting in the late medieval period of England, Wales and probably most of Scotland was for the land owners i.e. the nobility. Most other people were farmers, fishers and a few trades people. They got their food as a share from the farm, sea or what the Barrons gave out.
Modern non-compound hunting bows are recurve bows. Thus, Howard Hill likely could more comfortably shoot longbows because of what he is used to from his cultural familiarity, training, and practice. The 25 of the hunters he knew were probably Westerners who practiced with the culturally more popular longbow-selfbow. Different recurve bows have very different types of force curves and sensitivities. Manchu bows for example stack a lot of weight upfront in order to shoot heavy arrows effectively, while Turkish bows have a more gradual weight curve. Manchu recurve bows are huge and are almost as big as a longbow in size. Some longbows are actually recurved as well (and some English longbow designs have a slight recurved tip).
@GerrygamboneIt's quite likely that hunting your dinner with a heavy bow - deer, boar, wild goat - would have been illegal for most folks. Common folk could snare rabbits, but were banned from hunting large game.
A contact recurve is less forgiving to variable draw length.
Thanks for putting this long form together, Matt. As an Asiatic archer and composite bow shooter, I've had to explain a lot of these points to my Western viewers. I was going to do a shorts series on this. Would it be alright if I reference this long form for them as well in my shorts?
Yes absolutely, I'd be very interested to see that!
Im guessing drawing the longbow, helped create big strong guys who were a bit of handful, in any kinda fight
The longbow was like the Sherman Tank. It wasn't the best at everything, but it was produced and deployed in huge numbers. The Sherman could often be repaired by their crew, who were often farmboys used to working on tractors. The longbow was also something that could be deployed in large numbers and maintained by farmboys used to working with wood on the farm.
The Sherman actually was the best at a lot of things when it was first introduced, and remained the best at a few things like target acquisition for most of the war.
@BalthasarGelt-x2dgreat point! It's become a bit of a meme that the Sherman was mid
Tbf, against German tanks, Sherman would look very weak and unreliable
@BalthasarGelt-x2d Yeah, I think the T-34 fits this analogy better
And he ignored the argument of longbows being able to fire heavier arrows and if heavier arrows are better at armor penetration. Instead he essentially just said _these other guys these other bows, so they had to be just as good._
No debunking was done there. Claiming we debunked something when we clearly just avoided the entire point of the argument, is just silly at best.
Hi Matt,
Since you asked for the audience's takes, I'd like to share mine. First off, I'm a member of a Historical Archery group in the Philippines, and these are the kinds of things we study. We have a bit of a diversity in shooters and expertise in different kinds of Asiatic archery such as Turkish, Chinese, and Japanese, too. While I don't necessarily represent the group wholly, and I would like to disclaim that I am no scholar, I can offer a humble bit of insight:
(again, these are insights/theories)
If I had to boil it down to the simplest reasons, my theory would be that Western Europe didn't adapt it due to "cultural differences."
Though weather, terrain, and resources would most likely have been factors, the way I see it, it's mostly becuse archery has evolved in different ways in different cultures. Western Europe simply had evolved their archery their way, while the Asiatics had evolved theirs in their way, and either of their respective ways have worked for them. I think the question they would have asked was "Why should we completely re-learn how to make and shoot bows when we could just improve OUR way of making and shooting bows?"
It most probably took the respective Asiatic cultures GENERATIONS to be as efficient with their bows as they were. It was very much part of their culture. By the time Western Europe had interacted with Asiatic Archers, they had already had their way of doing things. And it’s like you said, these bows were used significantly differently. Western European Archery and Asiatic Archery had different levels of significance to how they fight in wars. Asiatic Bows were arguably superior to Western Bows because Asiatic Archers were arguably superior to Western European archers because they (arguably) played bigger parts in their warfare. Even if the Western Europeans would recognize that Asiatic bows were superior to theirs, simply switching their bows would not have done as much as completely re-training their troops how to use them to their full potential. It's not so much about the bows as it is more likely about the respective culture's archery.
I hope that provides a lot of insight!
If you’re interested in connecting with my group for anything, let me know by replying to this, and we can reach out to you via e-mail :)
Love this humble insight. I definitely agree that culture and use plays a big role in things. Kind of funny just hearing about the history of foods like potatoes and tomatoes getting introduced into the old world and no one really knew what to do with them. People tend to stick with what they are familiar with and sometimes culture and tradition can misconstrue facts. These longbows are bigger, sturdier, and heavier to pull, they must be better than these shorter, thinner, and lighter bows.
Asiatic bows only reached their height of development with the steppe tribesmen, who used a "Composite" recurved bow, horn on the inside to push, Sinew and leather on the outside to pull - to give a heavier bow that was short enough to be used with great Flexibility on Horseback. BUT they were herders and nomadic people, who had to defend livestock and hunt daily as they moved and followed the grass for their herds. So they used their bows during peace time, as a tool of their trade, each herdsman probably having a working bow and spares, and they used it throughout the year, year after year - plenty of time AND reason to refine their bow technology. War was not their primary motivation, defending livestock and feeding themselves, was. Their recurve bow relied LESS on the good quality of wood (which could be rare in the Steppes), and more on the other materials and skill of the bow-maker, quality of the glue (make from Sinew), and took longer to make (from 6 months to up to 2 years) , but they could afford to wait, because they would have more than 1 bow, and bows were passed down from father to son....bows were repaired, bows were serviced, re-shaped, re-lacquered continuously. The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Indians didn't even come close to that level of investment in the development and upkeep of their bows.
Exactly, my same thought.
And we can take our societies as examples too.
how many things we do are actually not ooptimal, we also know that, and still, no change happens. Because of many 'stupid reasons", and if they exist now, why wouldn't it b the same for the past.
People being against progression, people being used to their traditions and habits, people that produce the item and in no way would want to get replaced so they bribe their clients.
Like we're human, no robits, unfortunately xD
In others words, doctrine and redundancy.
Your humility is very refreshing! Thank you for the video!
His ignorance however is not very refreshing.
The colonised Welsh were the ones who did most of the longbow work for the English because.... As we can read people in Wales was so impoverished that they would fight for the English as mercenaries just to have some bread and cheese on the table
Do not read about Welsh history it is too depressing
Henry V was a Welshman.
18:47 new. Movie idea! Quigley Down Under but a medieval archer with a fancy recurve bow
As a psychologist, i think culture is a big part of it. The simplicity of recognizing someone by their type of gear is very valuable. Belonging to your own group and using/owning/carrying/displaying culturally significant objects, that mark you as being part of that group, is a key part of identity and a driver of in-/outgroup effects ("We vs. Them").
This alone (not wanting to be seen as a foreigner or enemy or any other outgroup) is reason enough to resist innovaton. We see the same pattern play out in different times and societies all around the world again and again, so it makes sense to me that this would also play a role in the adaptation of medieval weapons technology.
I think the fact that longbow practice was required by law on Sundays (after church service) further reinforces the idea of that cultural separation of the Christian vs. the Saracen. Many archery clubs still practice today on Sundays, occasionally on grounds near churches out of tradition.
I suspect culture is a very large part of it, tradition is I'd suspect an even greater driver of why the 'known' 'long-used' 'familiar' longbow was kept when there were more efficient and arguably better options. They worked, everybody knew it, their great great grandad used to use one just the same.
@LyingforcashI totally agree, and i didn't specifically mention tradition, because in my understanding traditions are a part of culture, or in some cases tradition and culture are almost synonymous concepts. Culture is what results out of a sum of traditions (plus a few other things)
Just look at our societies, how many things we do that are not optimal?
We even actually know that that's the case, and yes no change happens.
@Lyingforcash Tradition is not something separate from culture but the building blocks of it.
Northern Europeans were introduced en masse to the recurved bow, during the Crusades and occupation of the Holy Land. The decision by the English to fully embrace the longbow was certainly not based on ignorance of alternatives. Expense, ease of manufacture and maintenance are pretty good reasons to adhere to what already works for you.
I'm thinking that the maintanence is a bigger factor than we often think. Even today trying to keep modern composites alive in a very humid climate is a pain.
@ericcampbell9470 Yes and no, remember that there were hundreds of years between the crusades and the Roman Empire, and knowledge was very easily lost over those centuries, especially when the majority of the population is illiterate
Nah.. Vikings had recurved short bows.. also the Sami..
I find “don’t Need” and good enough a compelling reason. Jump to WWII when the Thompson submachine gun was replaced with the “grease gun”. The latter was cheaper, and easier to make/quicker to produce, and would do the same damage at close range.
Well, the grease gun wasn't just cheaper than a Thompson, it was also lighter, more compact, easier to use accurately (due to the lowered rate of fire), and it reloaded a lot faster. Once they fixed a couple early model flaws, it was a better weapon all around.
Good point. Cost is always important.
@IsaacKuoyep, but I figured that I’d poked my nose in enough. (I’m reading a novel by Patterson with a central character of a Texas Ranger)
Your explanation is convincing to me, reminds me of quality vs quantity issues in WWII
Some comments seem to think flat shooting a long bow would have more power than a recurve for close range. This is absolutely not true. A recurve is superior in range because it generates more power. So is also better than a long bow at close range. The reason stated in the video isn't that longbows are better at flat shooting, it's that they are sufficient and cheaper.
Not entirely correct. Composite bows are better for distance because the *return speed* of horn and other components of the composite is *faster* than that of wood. That is to say, if it is bent and then released (with little or no load resisting it) it will return to the original shape faster. Not necessarily that it will do so more *forcefully* . The wooden self bow doesn't return shape as swiftly. That means that when shooting a very *light* arrow, the composite bow will have a much greater initial velocity. But with very *heavy* arrows, it it the bow's *force* (determined primarily by draw weight) rather than its *return speed* that is the primary determinant of initial arrow velocity. When using very heavy arrows, the composite bows have very little advantage over the longbows.
The same is true of modern compound bows: they have EXTREMELY fast return speeds, but not all that much draw weight. Which means that with very light fiberglass or carbon fiber arrows, they can generate very impressive velocities. But if you were to put a medieval English war arrow on them (or an arrow of equivalent weight), they wouldn't perform meaningfully better than the longbow.
@bronco5334More weight more energy I think an English longbow can shoot a heavier arrow faster if the draw weight is substantially more on the longbow
@workhard124 No. You're missing the point. The return speed of a material is the "speed limit" for how fast it can launch a projectile. Horn has a faster maximum return speed than does yew wood; spring steel has a faster yet return speed.
The return speed is as fast as they can snap back into shape when released from tension, even if there is NO load on them (IE, no arrow at all).
But under increasingly heavy loads (heavier arrows), the return speed matters less, because they don't have the force (draw weight) to get the arrow up to the return speed before they reach their rest state. And in that scenario, higher return speed doesn't really matter any more (IE, composite bows have no meaningful advantage)
@bronco5334geometry. The longer limbs can apply the force better against the heavier arrow, allowing heavier arrows to maintain speeds closer to bow max.
Heavier arrows for a given speed have more energy and can be more readily constructed to dump that energy in the target rather than wasting it with over penetration.
Designed for different tactics is a great explanation
In The Bowyers’ Bible there’s one section (I think in vol 3) where the authors sit around and ask what bow type they would choose if they could only have one to keep themselves and their family alive. They all chose long d-shaped bows like the english longbow. Admittedly they were thinking of the best bow for a subsistence hunter, but their reasoning holds up for war bows too: ease of construction, durability, and reliability. As a bowyer who mainly builds traditional all wood bows, I can say that composite bows are 10 times more work for something that is only marginally better than a simple straight limbed bow. I think the more salient question is “why didn’t asiatic peoples shoot longbows?” Personally, I think the answer is climate & geography. You only resort to making bows of horn and sinew if you don’t have plentiful bow wood at your disposal. Composite bows are beautiful and I own several, but design is all about making something simpler where possible, not more complicated.
The other thing that bowyers understand is that there is a tradeoff between efficiency and durability. So while Matt is correct that a composite recurve is not necessarily delicate or fragile, when you give the limbs a more aggressive draw force curve you keep them under more stress and increase the likelihood of breakage. Likewise to make a bow more efficient you can reduce the mass of the limbs, which also means there's less material and they can be more prone to breakage. The trick is not to make a strawman out of it and think that composite recurves break all the time and that D-shaped selfbows are indestructible. All bows break sometimes, especially bows made of natural materials, but more efficient bows are somewhat more prone to breakage or are more difficult to make with sufficient durability. If I could pick one bow, it would be a fiberglass recurve. The boost in durability you get when going to synthetic materials is HUGE to the point where the durability difference between different limb shapes is absolutely negligible.
@Mick-uk5uc;
Beyond the simplicity and "cost" I think that the Asian fighters, in a society and military based on horses and cattle at "base camp" had access to materials that were common for them, whereas the availability of long, straight Yew, and other species, was not good. Cattle horn, sinews, and smaller wood species, were everyday items... And, travel on horseback, and fighting from horseback, would certainly favour a shorter, more maneuverable weapon. Shorter draw, too. Shorter arrows, easier to carry, not requiring longer straight shafts.
Just a thought.
@lohikarhu734 I agree.
Thank you...
@ThirdLawPair Plus, the fact is that sinew and medieval glue are both derived from animals. Sinew will only remain elastic so long no matter how well you seal the bow. Also the glue will only remain flexible so long. Eventually no matter how hard you try that sinew is going to rot and the bow will delaminate. Even if you never string it. That's simply the nature of primnitive glues and sinew. But they found long bows on the Mary Rose, still intact after hundreds of years of submersion. I highly suspect composite bows would not last that long. This is not to say self bows don't break down too. They absolutely do. Its just a question of bang for your buck (so to speak) Unless you're a horse archer you;re getting more utility from a self bow at a lower cost in both time and materials.
Agree with much of your reasoning. Would also add that a lot of warfare and use of the bow back then was in defending castles and fortifications, where they would be shooting down on attacking forces, so didn't really need that additional range.
So, a traditional laminated recurve bow was constructed using hide glue and sinew. These require extremely long curing times - months - before the bow can be used. In high humidity, the glue may fail to cure at all. Even when dried, it remains water soluble and a traditional composite bow would simply fall apart if submerged. You'll often see in the regions that make this type of bow, that both bowmaking and warmaking are, when possible, seasonal endeavors precisely because of the weather conditions at different times of year, and the impact that has on an army's effectiveness.
By contrast, the English longbow is just a tapered stick. A skilled bowyer can turn a dry stave to a complete warbow in mere days, regardless of season.
Another thing to consider is efficiency... you make the point that the shorter recurved bows are more efficient, but I disagree - assuming equal draw length, draw weight, and projectile weight, a longbow design is more efficient because the limb tips do not have to move nearly as far when the arrow is released. In other words, less of the stored energy is committed to moving the bow's limbs, and more energy is committed to pushing the arrow.
Composite bows often have rigid tips/siyahs as well. The rigidity is needed for side-to-side stability on extreme recurve designs, which necessitates extra mass on the limb tips that the bow must move using its stored energy. In general, a recurve bow will be outperformed in arrow speed by a longbow of equal mass, limb length, draw length, draw weight and projectile mass.
The extra length of the longbow also allowed a different draw technique. ELBs are often drawn past the cheek and ear, to 31-34 inches, as opposed to those recurved composites which are usually drawn only to the nose, maybe around 28 inches on average. A longer draw length at the same draw weight will result in a longer power stroke and longer duration of arrow/string contact, and impart more energy to the arrow. You can see this principle exemplified when you look at war crossbows. Later era crossbows drawn with a winch could be hundreds or thousands of pounds in draw weight, but are still outperformed by longbows of 180lbs or less. The difference is the length of the limbs and the power stroke. The crossbow's principle advantage was ease of use, accuracy, portability, and ease of wielding atop cramped castle battlements, but had much less range than a well-made longbow.
The advantage of short, recurved composite bows is, as you say, portability and the ability to be used on horseback.
Depending on the draw weight you want, it takes years. I've seen modern reproductions that took 2 years, but apparently Ottoman bows could take 5+ YEARS a piece.
Well said. Another issue is quality of the sinew and glue. The sinew had to be prepared to preserve its elasticity and the glue had to be just right to preserve its flexibility. Any mistakes will result in delamination no matter how well you shellac the bow. Self bows are seaspm bow staves, shape, wax, fit the bow tips, done. A much less complicated process.
And for a footman, a self bow is easy to maintain. All you need is wax. On a battlefield simple to maintain and uncomplicated are beautiful. Unless you're a horse archer, a composite bow is unnecessary. Sure infantry can use them, but its not necessary. Its an added expense and the advantages aren't enough to justify the costs.
in fact the animal glue dries pretty fast. I use it on wood, so not on a bow, but it catches after 10 seconds really, i can drop the glued wood after it :)
They used kasein and fish glue as far as i know, and those types hold up really well against water. Of course a longbow is much better in rainfall, but a well made recurve bow wont fall apart because a bit of rain falls on it.
Or i am wrong :D
Wrong on many points, sorry.
Draw length: extent medieval arrows are far from being as long as art and modern practice would suggest, drawing more than 31 inches would be rare, not the mention 34. On the other hand many "composite bow traditions", e.g. Chinese, practice a very long draw, and even the short Turkish bows can be drawn to crazy lengths. EVERY bow tradition that could or had to use a long draw did.
Efficiency: the calculations have been done, and not the longbow is not more efficient. The siyah bows are not the best either, but still outclass the longbows. Full working recurve bows (such as Turkish bows) without static ends are even better. And, not very surprising, the deflex recurve bow, especially made with modern materials (i.e. the modern Olympic recurve) has the best performance of all. Two simple metrics: the maximum range in distance shooting is far greater with Turkish bows (up to 800m) than longbows (about 200m), but outperformed by modern recurves (1200m); and for ultimate accuracy at long distances on foot (requiring quick arrow flight and flat trajectories), the best bow is obviously the Olympic recurve too. Only compound bows outperform recurves in accuracy (due to easier aiming) but still don't outperform them in energy efficiency.
(and additionally, it doesn't really make sense to compare bows of equal limb mass and length, given that the goal of different construction techniques is precisely to get different limb mass and length)
And I'm saying all that as a longbow enthusiast.
I'm pretty strong and I find using my 40lb recurve bow tiring! Can't imagine using a long bow for an extended time period.
Need to get the weights out mate, I've been building up my shoulders for a couple of weeks and I'm already noticing the difference 👍
So not that strong after all it seems 🙂
I shoot my 135 pound english style warbow 200 times in one session (5x40 shots)...
If you find tiring shooting a 40 lb bow you are definitely not pretty strong in the muscles used for shooting. May be you are strong in other movements.
I am 79 years old and shoot a 60 pound recurve with easy regularly.
As a veteran of the US Army, as well as someone who's worked in corporate American business, my best guess is simply: "because we've always done it this way".
Basic human tendency to keep doing the same thing that's worked before in lieu of adapting to change.
This is true but keep in mind change, adaptation, innovation and staying relevant by keeping one step ahead is also an ancient and timeless military tradition, of those militaries that have a history of winning battles and wars at any rate
Nice mini documentary I liked very much
The important part about the climate is not total annual precipitation, but general humidity and distribution of rainfall. The oceanic climate of NW Europe leads to more frequent (if less concentrated) rainfall and humid conditions, even if the overall levels of precipitation are similar in continental regions.
Not saying that that's the main factor in the distribution of bows, or even a significant factor at all (after all, the main point raised in the video makes a lot of sense), but it can't just be dismissed by pointing out that other places get rain, too.
There is some evidence that the composite bows of central Asia were greatly impacted by the humid climate of India.
it kind of can be. as mentioned in the video, crossbows at that time were also made from composit material. and in the holy roman empire that was the common ranged weapon, next to guns, bows werent used in warfare over here. And its not like mainland northern europe is more dry than england.
@Glimmlampe1982 Apart from the Atlantic and North Sea coastal regions, mainland Northern Europe has a more continental climate than the British Isles. It's not an East Coast climate like in North America or East Asia, but there is a measurable difference. Again, it's not about total precipitation.
@01SangahyandoI'm not a climate or weather specialist, but according to Wikipedia North Western Europe is oceanic climate and on the same category on the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. For me that reads that the climate is roughly the same. Sure there are local differences, but those are minor differences.
If we'd see something like bows used mainly on ships and crossbows mainly on land I'd agree, but not if it's just the difference between GB and Germany
I agree longbows with linen strings waxed and bow treated with oil or fats work better in rainy wet places then glued composit bow with gut, rawhide, or silk strings. So not worth it in Europe.
I think you are still underestimating the effect of weather and dampness. I believe historically there is a clear association between arid regions preferring composite bows and wetter regions preferring self bows. Going back to the Bronze and Iron ages, Greece and Egypt adopted composite bows, whereas peoples like the Celts or Germanic tribes did not.
Yes, India has a very wet Monsoon season, but it might be that the Monsoon is highly predictable and there is not very much rainfall outside of that season. So in effect India is an arid region for most of the year, with the exception of the Monsoon. In northwestern Europe there isn't really any time when you can be sure it won't rain, the weather is more unpredictable. I think the idea of English armies adopting laminated composite bows wouldn't work well, because the rain and generally damp and humid conditions are highly prevalent most of the year and are unpredictable, even in summer. So such an army going on campaign would probably end up with soggy, floppy bows that don't function. Hence a preference to stick to solid yew self bows.
The other factor is probably significant cultural inertia. It's very clear that steppe peoples massively favoured composite bows, and the Hungarians originated as one of those steppe nomad cultures (all steppe landscapes of Eurasia are arid regions with little rainfall). All of their archery system was dependent on it and so they didn't change, even when they went into somewhat wetter areas (though I think Hungary is also naturally dryer than surrounding areas). It's the same for the Arabs, Persians, Turks and Mughals entering northern India. They were coming from an established steppe nomad composite bow tradition, which they kept. However, I'm not sure I've ever seen composite bows further south into Southeast Asia and the jungle/rainforest zones. Which would be further evidence that composite bows do not perform well in generally humid, wet conditions.
Yeah, I believe India generally avoided the Monsoons for war fighting, like europe avoided winter.
luckily the holy roman empire mainly consists of dry deserts and only had seasonal monsun ;)
that argument completely ignores that outside of GB and maybe parts of france, no one was using bows in warfare. the ranged weapon in the holy roman empire was the crossbow... with composite bow limbs. Its not like you cant waterproof these things with medieval meterials
Conversely, yew bows perform badly over 95F
Interesting hypothesis
Fish Glue is waterproof and so is silk! Understand that your ridiculous supposition is not supported by logic!
As some else mentioned, in other cultures the archers had higher status, but I would put a different slant on that argument.
The archers in English medieval forces were often part time soldiers who were training at weekends while they did their day jobs during the week. These people would not have taken the same care looking after a complex weapon as a full time soldier for whom the bow was his bread and butter and not simply a tool for part time soldiering when he was conscripted by his lord and master.
I came here looking for comments like this. I would also point out that the evidence from texts, Mary Rose replicas, and skeletons, is that the English/Welsh longbow, to be practical, required archers who had dedicated years of training and muscular development to acquire the skill and strength to use them. The video mentions supplying an army during a campaign; it does not mention supplying bows to the large numbers of then civilians who are training themselves to shoot - and become familiar with that type and draw weight of bow - from childhood on.
The two arguments are not exclusive. Eastern archers were often mounted. No European peasant could afford to maintain a horse - or indeed a string of horses. Shooting from horseback also took more training. So to be an archer at all, in those cultures, took money and time that peasant soldiers didn't have.
That said, I think it's a little harsh to say that peasant archers couldn't be trusted to look after their weapons. It was common practice to carry them unstrung and bagged to reduce stress and protect from weather accepting the inconvenience of not having the bow ready. Archers would often fashion cruder bows and arrows for themselves and use these for less vital tasks, preserving their best weapons from wear. Even for a part time soldier, skill at archery was a way to put meat on the table or win a bet, not just for war.
Didn't every male back then in England, needed to train archery after they turned 15, i remember some expert saying that, think it was Toby Capwell( lol, as i just wrote that, i hear him being mentioned 16:02) 😅
Great info thanks. I've read that the Welsh long bowmen ambushed their enemies at close range in forests. Long bows can probably also fire longer heavier arrows that hit harder.
I bet it’s something to do with tolerances. The longbow was a defensive weapon, the strung longbow able to loiter longer strung waiting for the charge. The recurve couldn’t loiter strung, but attackers can choose when to string their bow.
8:51 I will give you the best answer you ever heard of... the answer is weather..!! laminated wood loves to split under moisture... the fighting arenas in the Eu's north west, are cold wet and muddy... unless you store the laminated bow in some dry area, indoor preferably, it will split in less then a month... remember they did no have moisture measuring tools back in the day to make them 100% right every single time, during the lamination process, neither the materials they have today that don't care about moisture...
So... why didn't the crossbows break?
The glues used in ancient composite bows were primarily fish bladder and hide glues, protein based glues which harden by losing water. They could absolutely delaminate if they absorb water.
Hide glue is used as a hot glue. Water will soften it but it is heated for use [in a "glue pot"], and it would take substantial soaking time anyway.
Other than using them in the rain, it isn't a concern. For one thing you can oil/wax the bows, or just store them somewhere dry. Sure if you use them in the rain you can cause them to delaminate far more rapidly, however the typical bowstrings(using hide or sinew) are as much if not more of an issue in rain. A longbow is better in the rain, particularly if you use a thick plant fiber string that has been waxed, but people generally don't like to fight in the rain if they can help it in the first place.
@BoredomItself people just ignore lacquer or other sealing methods and act like people in the past were dumb and didnt know how to plan around disadvantages
As Matt pointed out: these weren't just used in the desert. There is humidity and rain in India and China. Edit: this comment was for @fuzzy3440 but Ytube keeps putting it here. : (
@vettebodee the method Indians probably used was shellac, though beeswax was probably everywhere if you could afford it
22:52 happy Matt Easton to you, too :)
Sleeping in a hedge on campaign probably meant the long bow was better. It's not just about a day of rain here and there, it's about every single morning having 4-5 hours of dew and that level of humidity.
Kiss: keep things stupidly simple. The self bow is inherently simple and can be made by a skilled bowyer in a few hours. It is also arguably more rugged.
Long bows dont like getting damp eirhet, they go very sloppy
@dridahook7284much easier to seal a single piece of wood though.
Germany exported so much yew to England for longbows that the tree has become rare (and protected by law)...
I always assumed (in part because of other people explaining it thus) that composite bows weren't really used in England (even though the Roman armies used them and brought some) because of the relatively cold and more importantly, damp weather which isn't great for composite bows (making it more difficult to maintain and store them).
The Korean climate is perhaps even worse for composite bows, as are parts of South Asia. & there are sources saying how much of pain it was to keep composite bows in good condition. I agree weather is part of the reason Western/Central Europeans used yew warbows.
There was shortages of yew in England also. So much so that when wine was imported, yew staves were required to be shipped with it.
yet germany isnt so much less humid than GB. And the composite crossbow was the ranged weapon then. somehow everyone looks at the english longbow and imediately forgets that pretty much no one else in western/central europe used bows in war, at least in the HRE they relied on crossbows
During the first two minutes of the video I took a quick dive, while skipping everything the AI had to say, to the history of Asiatic archery and recurve bows in Europe and found out before 5:42 that recurve bows were common in europe all the way to Bar Hill on the Antonine Wall in Scotland due to the fact that recurve bows were the standard weapon of Roman Imperial archers. Another thing which I found out during two minutes of surfing was that recurve bows were common in drier countries, which England is not, so laminated recurve bows required dry conditions. Straight long bows suited better in wetter areas of the planet. Recurve bows were also basically the standard bow of the indigenous people in the North American continent, especially on the west coast.
You missed the part where Matt talked about rain. While the composite bows were more prone to water damage, it wasn't really a problem with the right materials and maintenance. Culturally mounted archers were more of an elite warrior, trained from a young age to achieve both horsemanship and warbow archery. In comparison the English longbowmen for example were mostly drawn from lowborn peasants, the general population of the time and most likely had to buy and replace their own bows. So it's about more than just rain and durability, it's also tied to cultural and military reasons.
@GamelessOne English longbowmen were not lowborn peasants, they wouldn't have been able to afford the bows or the arrows to train with. That is a common misconception. English longbowmen were pulled from the Yeoman class, a class of people just below knights, not quite nobility but far from poor peasants. They had to own their land (usually about 100 acres), or were townsmen of equal wealth, and often served as minor government officials such as bailiffs, local tax collectors, castle Stewards and even sheriffs of small counties.
@GamelessOne No I didn't miss it. I just found out the stuff on the video in two minutes.
@GamelessOne And it's mostly just about the weather, which actually is one the largest influencers on any culture.
@salvarsaani Well there's a lot of things that suggest it's not just about the weather, since there's plenty of rain in the places where laminate bows where used all the time.
excellent video, thank you! Fast paced, knowledgeable with no stupid music or AI😊 Reading the commits it seems they are all correct in some ways….
I've heard stories that Mongol composite bows disintegrated when they invaded Vietnam and lost. I think that the rain and humidity in Vietnam is on a whole other level, though.
nah I am sure Vietnamese soldiers used similar bows. They might have waterproofed their bows better than Mongols but not much of a difference.
@BFP2021a quick Google search shows me that the Vietnamese mostly used bamboo bows.
I think almost all glues at that time were water soluble, so that could be true. Another factor could be that Vietnam was not conducive to warfare on horseback.
@LeafBallast-j8p5q yeah, Northern Vietnam has a significant mountain range between the contemporary northern border and southern China
The Vietnamese histories are about evacuating their towns and going deep into the forests and conducting large scale ambushes in close terrain. A story that would sound all too familiar to the Chinese, the French, the Americans and the Chinese (again).... Or the Romans?
I think you’ve probably got it. For what they needed a bow to do, the longbow did *good enough* and was cheaper, easier, and faster to produce/obtain. Extra capabilities only matter if you’re actually going to use them, and if you’re not, why bother paying extra for them?
I wonder if terrain played a part in fighting in closer ranges. Long-range capabilities would matter a lot in the open steppe, where there’s miles and miles of fairly flat land with little to block sightlines, but if you’ve got hedgerows and forests and fortifications and buildings and hills and whatnot all around, you may not even get the opportunity to make use of the extra potential range. A bit like a dagger being more useful at grappling distance than a pike, or (for a less extreme example) sort of like a cutlass being more useful aboard a ship than a cavalry saber would be.
Probably. Though it was mostly they used archery from horseback. If you're launching arrows on foot a composite only offers you marginally more range and power. The composite bow is superior in range and power but it also costs a lot more in time and materials to make. And is a lot more sophisticated. Getting the right kind of sinew the right kind of glue and sealing the bow properly are all far more technical than shaving down a wooden stick to the appropriate dimensions.
If you screw up a composite bow, its going to end badly. Its much harder to screw up a self bow. If you try really hard it can be done of course LOL Its just harder.
And given that Europe is covered in castles, often in difficult to attack positions each of which has to be neutralized, combined with the far less favorable terrain, I don't think the Mongols would have had it easy. They could have won, but its not a guaranteed victory.
Some Central Europe use these recurve bows, but never made them. Example is Poland we got them from Hungarians, Turks and Mongols. Hungarians bows were based on Mongolian bows design. To design and make recurve bow could take up to a year as presented by many bow makers. Also they were carried in waterproof cases. Materials vary depending on geography of the country of origin. To learn to shoot with recurve bow takes months, to learn use now from the horse even longer. Hungarians are master in hits mounted archery and bow making among European countries.. My bow was made in famous workshop Grozer using some traditional material and some modern. Just 400Euro. Made of all natural material over 1-2K Euro
You are doing a great job! I like you work. One year ago I had the opportunity to visit Nürnberg. When I saw this old medieval fortresses in the city core, I rembered your mentions of the city as a medieval hub of armor and weapons industry. I immediately thougt …. Ok you can still see that in the City. Thank you for that. 👍
The tactics may have been a factor, but the socio-economic structure of medieval England may also be relevent; the Normal conquest replaced Anglo-Saxon aristocracy with a French style feudal system, but with a reduced aristocracy (Normandy was much smaller tha Enlgland) which, having more land, was more individually powerful, less centered on the crown, and more autonomous (the Magna Carta is an example). As such, aristocrats were less pressured into spending money on the men-at-arms they sent to fight the king's wars, sending them with little armor, and just the normal bows they used for hunting, poaching etc. Also, there were few ways of measuring the efficiency of a bow then, so nobody knew. Englishmen just assume their bow, that the bow their father made them was somehow better. 20:52
15:28 In Japan Samurai used famously long bows while mounted.
The Yumi was longer at the top to compliment horse archery. It's a whole other question why Samurai didn't use smaller composite bows, when they were primarily cavalry with a lot of focus on the bow. Other eastern and asiatic nations had their own style of fairly short composite bows, but Japan choose to use very long composite bows and adapted them to mounted archery.
Asymmetric
They are made in a composte fashion though
I think you missed the elephant in the room: cost. It's way cheaper to make a stick with a string, than it is to import and or make, a composite bow. Especially if you need ten thousand of the things. Very interesting video sir.
I think you didn't watch the video before commenting...
This guy is really loaded with knowledge 😅 great work 👍
Hungarian here. Try riding a horse at full gallop while using your longbow. Try to hit targets left, right and to the front and rear. Recurve bows were custom jobs tailor-made for the user who owned several each designed for different purpose. Some were made for hunting, others were war bows or asymmetrical for horseback archery. Nomads were steppe herders and warriors at once. Their bows were precision instruments and their livelihood. They did not need to arm any peasant army since they naturally formed a light cavalry. Nomads were free men united under a chieftain. There were no peasants. It was a warrior society.
Plus the importance of bows is a bit overstated. The Byzantine chronicles mention that the most important weapon of a Hungarian warrior is the lance. Modern depictions often only show mounted archers with MAYBE a saber also hanging from their belt. In reality they carried a bow, a lance and a saber. Sabers and swords are primarily self-defence weapons used at close range. The number one attempt by militaries of the world throughout history was to keep the enemy as far away from you as possible. Spears and lances were absolutely central to every soldier.
The big difference in rain between England and India is, in India it rains once for a few weeks in the rain season, while in England it rains once per year for around 12 months.
The Mongols also came from a relative dry area and it made more sense for them to keep the recurve bow while invading wetter regions, because they were already trained on them and not on longbows and they are better for mounted archers
This is what I think too.
It was the Welsh longbow since the 6th century.....it had nothing to do with f****** England.
Typical English people always ignoring the original British Welsh
Composite bows of various types have been used all over Eurasia, not just in steppes. It doesn't seem to have been particularly climate dependent weapon. Siberian taiga is not an arid place.
@terhazza In Siberian taiga humidity is very low during winter though.
Totally wrong. A warrior used two-three kind of his own recurve bow, covered with leather sheats...and tell me which resist the rain better: a simple piece of wood(longbow) OR a mixture of horn, sinews and specifically bred parts of a tree? Well, well...
The Japanese Yumi bow is an extra long recurve bow that was used from horseback. Thus, the Yumi proves that even extra long bows can be used from horseback. However, I suspect the reason archers in some countries preferred long bow over recurve bows is that modern archers say that a long bow is more forgiving to shoot than a recurve bow and thus, they find it easier to be consistent with a long bow and therefore, they can shoot a long bow more accurately more often than they can a recurve bow.
But the only reason it was possible to use a Yumi bow from horseback was because the hand grip was off-centered.. The lower end was way shorter than the top end. Recurve short I would argue. That doesnt automatically mean that a regular long bow (with a center grip) could be used on horseback.
The yumi is a longbow by length but a horsebow by analogy. It was the main mounted samurai weapon. Forgivenes, sound, stability, speed, longevity, are characteristics depending on the bow make and type. Accuracy is all about mileage consitration, skill and training. Samurais, Hindus, Coreans, Chineese meditate with a bow and arrow. It's in their culture, their religion, in the Vedas (look Dhanurveda).
Thank you Matt for this excellent video. This is the 1st video I have seen that makes sense of armour, archery and mediaeval warfare. You not only explain why mediaeval England use longbows as opposed to recurve bows, you also make a great explanation of the balance and use of archery and armour.
Climate also: Wetter weather does not favor any composite bow. A longbow can tolerate wetter conditions better without damage. Plus, materials for good longbows were readily available in northern Europe.
You should have watched the video before commenting.
I love how you can tell who didn't make it halfway through the video before heading to the comments
Certainly in England & Wales, the fact that the longbow was pretty much part of every-day life counts for a lot - a great proportion of the population would have had access to one and probably would have had training & practice using one. Also, I suspect, that in large engagements, arrow supply would be a big thing, it helps if everyone needs a similar arrow, so you need one or the other, sticking with what most know & the infrastructure to make & make arrows for makes sense. Cost and number of artisans making them, makes a difference, as does the time it takes 1 artisan to produce 1 finished and battle ready bow.
In any case, an interesting video & argument!
The Finns used a laminated bow, made from several types of wood glued together. Pretty rainy in Finland.
@verysurvival I said pretty rainy, not very rainy. According to Google, Finland receives up to 700mm of rain a year. Not a rainforest, but not dry like Southern California
from what I found after a quick search, Finland has about the same amount of yearly rainfall as Germany, around 60-80cm per year, with Germany being slightly less on average. Living in Germany, I wouldn't consider it rainy. England has about double the rainfall...
@stoicshieldHaving lived in Germany for 12 years after living in New Jersey, I'd have to disagree.
I just did a quick bit of searching and came up with conflicting numbers for average rainfall in the UK and Germany, but they seem kind of similar according to most figures I can find (it varies more between different parts of each country, than it does between the countries). So no, from what I can see it does not seem that the UK is much wetter than Germany, and if you remove Scotland and Wales, and just consider England, then very similar.
No that is not rain, it is mainly snow, which is still dry. Finland is a comparatively very dry country.
As we used to say in the US Army, Private Joe Snuffy needs to be able to do this task easily. A recurve bow isn't easy to make, and requires an experienced and highly skilled Bowyer to produce one that is reliably powerful. A longbow, on the other hand, can be made by pretty much anyone (I was making rudimentary longbows before the age of 10 with absolutely no understanding of the craft of bow making that could sink a homemade arrow 2" into a tree). The military doctrine of medieval Europe (especially England) was that everyone who bore arms was required to have their own bow and had the skill to use it. Murphy's combat laws comes to mind here in that if it's stupid, but works, it's not stupid. The recurve bow may be better than a longbow, but the longbow can accomplish its assigned task without a much effort. You can make far more longbows than recurve bows in a set account of time, so the concept of quantity being quality all is own really starts to shine. I'm an infantryman by training (8 years active duty US Army), so I greatly respect the concept of volume of fire. It's the difference between a Sherman tank and a Tiger II. One is easily mass produced, and the other is a finely tuned piece of engineering and technologically advanced weapon system. The mass produced one just happened to win WWII.
As a warbow archer, I can tell you that it’s easier to aim and shoot a warbow longbow compared to a warbow short recurve. I shoot a 120lb recurve and a 130lb longbow and the longbow is easier to shoot, more stable and it shoots a heavier arrow faster. Look at Joe Gibbs tests, he’s shooting a 60+ gram arrow over 200fps. Show me a recurve warbow that can easily do this faster. Fact is yew longbows at high draw weights isn’t a slow inferior bow.
Manchu bow, 10 gpp 33" draw, can reach 200 FPS.
Though the bow's usually meant to shoot heavier arrows: it casts 16gpp over 170 FPS and 20gpp over 150 FPS.
What part of the country are you in, USA?
exactly. i am learning to shoot a modern longbow, and both from theory and practice it is easier to accurately shoot longer bows for target archery (that is flat shooting basically). it is not because the bow is less accurate (if you put them on a machine they are equally accurate), but because human requirements for accurate shooting are different, shorter bows need better control aka positioning, and therefore better training. If a horse bow archer shows same groups in the target as a long bow archer, it means the former is simply a better archer. Imagine someone shooting a trad bow as accurate as an olympic bow archer (or god forbid a compound bow). It means he is a master, and those are students. (of course accuracy discrepancy between a trad bow and an olimpic recurve is MUCH higher than between a long bow and and a turkish bow, but principle is same)
Simplicity in both making and caring for, and vastly greater quantities of the raw materials, vs a gain of 10-15% in power probably covers most bases.
Few points that instantly came to my mind:
in medieval arms and armour sourcebook III there is a source about bavarian crossbow men who use horn and sinew for their crossbows which make those crossbow extremly hard/robust the colder it gets. He praises them for it since they do not break unlike other cross bows.
Sadly i dont remember the exact source but in one of the contemporary books that talks about tactics against the ottoman empire the autor briefly talks about the bows of the turks which sometimes get weaker in long campaigning because of the climate hence their shooting power gets weaker. Which could be the reverse of the above mentioned source and could hint to the climate/materials playing a role.
Im not sure but i heard that the japanese choose to make their bows from bamboo and fish glue because of their somewhat different climate compared to others. Hence why they didnt use traditional composite bows but their own thing instead.
I think mike loades in his book "warbow" iirc also suggested that it would be cheaper to make long bows from wood and it would be easier to keep maintained. Maybe this also works together with certain types of climates. Also since the longbow was mostly used by footsoldier it kind of needed to be cheaper whereas the recurve bow was used on horseback which mostly imply soldiers that could afford horses. and then also ties to the tactics like you mentioned in the video.
Bamboo is a very good bow making material. So good that it is widely used by modern makers who are building bows that are otherwise very western I design. It's very common as a backing layer in American hunting long bows.
- the composite bow costs more ( material, time and skill) and is a lot more susceptible to wet weather ( while horn is stable that can't be said of sinew and animal glues). I built my own sinew backed self-bow (with snake skin to give some protection from the weather) and its response to changes in just the humidity is noticeable. Of lesser issue is shorter composite bows take more skill to master shooting - but can be used in more restrictive environments ( forests , horseback ...) - so if your outfitting an army of farmers, that fights on foot in a rainy northern country, which would you go with?
Matt addressed the weather issue in the video. Countries that primarily used composite recurves *also had bad weather* . That isn't a reason they weren't used in western Europe.
I don't know how susceptible to wet weather composite bows are. But I believe your cost argument has a flaw. Longbowmen did take a very long time to train so they could be accurate and pull these heavy draw weights. So they already were a troop type that was quite expensive to raise. I don't know if the higher costs of composite bows makes that much of a difference when factoring in the other costs that come with employing longbowmen.
@pacmonster066 it's part of it - the cultures that used composite bows tended to use them from horseback ( fast moving ) - limiting their exposure time in the field. But I'm open to hearing other's experiences with their composite bows used in the field exposed for long periods ( like archery hunting in northern wet woods) - the indigenous Americans are recorded to have called off fights/hunting if it rained
All the given examples of "bad weather" are in my opinion wrong. Precisely in very cold temperatures, air humidity is extremely low because all water in the atmosphere has been turned to ice.
India is a different matter, but I suppose that the extreme humidity is seasonal.
In North Western Europe, heavy rain can happen in any month.
@greedygroot Why did you think England banned other sports and cus cheaper, more you by the bow and more ammo to practice with. Also, shad pointed, the less dramatic angle from firing means you could keep practicing for longer without it breaking cus the bow isn't bending as much. It is big stick with less of a dramatic angle at full draw. Also simple to make so the bow maker is a cheaper person to employ.