Dane,
The kill rate of the English War bow (as it was employed in English warfare) was so high English archers were said to have carried the lives of 24 men in each quiver (of 24 arrows). English arrows were very carefully crafted so they would have been expensive and time consuming to make. Battles like Againcourt were not 'jungle warfare to say the least. Archers were used to concentrate the masses of French soldiers in the middle of the field. When the English archers fired at the sidelines Frenchmen forced their way toward the middle of the field in a panic to get away from the English fire. Archers would then send clouds of arrows into the center of the field where people were forced tightly together. I don't think many arrows missed. Of course, that was as good as it got for the English. It didn't always work.
J. D. Duff
Interesting stuff, JD. I wonder what the reality was, though - victors always write the history. A few thoughts: the American Civil War tactics were often massed troops firing against other massed troops, much as in the Napolionic War, but with weapons freightfully more effective than the smooth bore muskets of the early 19th century. Going on 4 years of warfare, even then, with seasoned troops, it took a whole lot of miniballs to kill or wound one enemy, many thousands to kill one man.
The medieval foot soldier was a commoner, probably never traveled more than a few miles from his birthplace, and was badly fed, suffered from disease and starvation, etc. Suddenly he was confronted by thousands of enemy soldiers bent on his destruction, a terrifying scenerio. Sure, the English weren't ducking volley after volley of enemy arrows (were they?), but the psyschology of the battlefield alone must factor negatively into how accurate they shot. These guys of course grew up with the longbow, so had a lifetime of training with the weapon, but clout shooting and a battle are entirely different things. In a few weeks, you can be a fairly competent rifleman, and if they do so badly accuracy wise in conflicts down to the beginning of gunpowder, how really did a medieval archer do, lifetime of training factored in?
Has anyone done any forensic studies on these battles, to try to determine actual causualties from arrow wounds, or is even such a thing possible? That would would be very interesting stuff there.
