What is "Warbow"

[mullet]

Bob,The Caloosa's at the time of DeSota were recorded as shooting bows in the 90 to 120# weight.The Caloosa's average height was 6' tall.

[sagitarius boemoru]

Simon, there is alot of research about price of the bows and price of excellent quality foreign yew bow, english yew (about half or one third of the said) and also elm or other wood bows is known. There are still records and paychecks which along the money describe preciselly nature of product bought.


Jaro

[duffontap]

Ishi's hunting bows were three fingers and his war bows were four fingers.  Add 1/3 to 45# and you get 60#.  Not method that's exactly guaranteed to be accurate though. 

Al Herin says Cherokee war bows were about 70#. 

               J. D. Duff

[duffontap]

For sure J.D your shorter bows are a good draweight - but then they would be being shorter and the Mary Rose bows tend towards the 80inch mark.

My bow is about 1/2" under average length.  I purposely made it as close to average as I could.

            J. D. Duff

[Justin Snyder]

Most of my info comes from encyclopedias.  I read that the Cherokee war bows were longbows and could be as much as 80-90 pounds. After reflection, I know that the statement in the encyclopedia about Native American warbows being heavier than their hunting bows must be somewhat flawed.  We know that they used sinew backed high weight short bows for hunting from horseback. Some of these bows were reportedly 90# or more.  That would make the 70# warbow lighter than the 90# hunting bow.    Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed.  Justin

[duffontap]

Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed.  Justin

Well, at least this is the internet.  You know anything you read here is true.

               J. D. Duff

[Justin Snyder]

Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed.  Justin

Well, at least this is the internet.  You know anything you read here is true.

               J. D. Duff

  ;)     

[ChrisD]

Well Jaro

I, of course, know about the acts you refer to - all I'm pointing out is that they stipulated that practice should take place, that it should be regular, everybody who could should do it and prescribed some ranges. It doesn't mean that they practiced with war arrows though and the only illustration which I've seen of practice at the butts (I'm sure you're aware of the one to which I refer) shows arrows which look very unwarlike to me. It cannot have been beyond the wit of man to work out that if archer bloggins can shoot 240yds with such and such an arrow, then 200yd will be achieveable with whatever the lightest war arrow was.

While we are on the topic of art as a reference point - I'm always curious about the frequency with which historians quote medieval art when it illustrates what they want and criticise it when its used as an example of what they don't want to hear. My view is that it can be a guide but should be used with a big dose of scepticism. I'm well aware that big fletchings can be whats needed to make an arrow go far - but I think we're both agreed that big and aerodynamic need not be mutually exclusive.

I'm also grateful for your analysis of the lengths of the Mary Rose bows whcih according to your figures do indeed 'tend towards the 80 inch mark' as I suggested. I'm also pleased to hear that according to your lights, my bow is 'shot in' given its current status in draw weight.  I don't think that thats what Ascham meant when he described his process of finding and treating a good bow. I don't have any plans for example to pike my bow any further, nor dress it up or anything else- to do so would probably be the end of it. Similar with the MR bows. They hadn't been used when the ship went down so you'd have to accept the argument that they were essentially unfinished to support your views of 'shot in and shot out'. My own view is that the MR bows are well made mass produced bows made for battle which would have been ready for use pretty promptly after appropriate exercise warming up and after some hundreds of shots, most would either be of reduced weight but still useable or they'd be firewood.

On that point - theres no reason to think that Tudor bowyers were idiots or unable to make great bows - but neither is there any reason to imagine that they lavished the kind of care and attention that modern bowyers such as yourself and others do. The ordinances limiting the number of bows worked on at one time were there to maintain quality for sure, but they would have been tempered by the pragmatic requirement to keep the supplies of bows at useable levels. Some compromise in standard is always going to take place in any attempt at mass production and I don't see why livery bows would have been any exception. This is England we are talking about and they have always been pragmatic people.

Chris

PS if you don't like the absence of evidence  point, then try Donald Rumsfelds 'known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns'. Its the last category I'm talking about and I for one am happier to admit that in some circumstances, there just is no convincing evidence and no amount of research is going to turn it up.

[sagitarius boemoru]

Point by point

"I'm sure you're aware of the one to which I refer."

Dont be cryptic its stupid. If you mean Lutrell Psalter, we talk 1340´ or so, not a tudor time with its 250 years of extablished law, logistic and social base out of which archers could be sellected through suitable recruiting tools of archery contest.


" an example of what they don't want to hear"

Please point me to one exact.


"I'm also grateful for your analysis of the lengths of the Mary Rose bows whcih according to your figures do indeed 'tend towards the 80 inch mark' as I suggested"

No - they are obviously shorter mostly. 4´´ of difference is some difference here. Be exact.


"I don't think that thats what Ascham meant when he described his process of finding and treating a good bow. I don't have any plans for example to pike my bow any further, nor dress it up or anything else- to do so would probably be the end of it"

Because today bows arent  shot in and customised the same way. Any bowyer selling bows is selling it to largelly ignorant public , which means he does all the work prior giving the bow to generally amateur archer. This is done mostly through rigorous tiler excersise, but e.g. out of my workshop hardly goes yn bow which was not piked and adjusted to perform satosfactory. Most archers also does not have a clue about what to do with bow else than to shoot.

"Similar with the MR bows. They hadn't been used when the ship went down so you'd have to accept the argument that they were essentially unfinished to support your views of 'shot in and shot out'. My own view is that the MR bows are well made mass produced bows made for battle which would have been ready for use pretty promptly after appropriate exercise warming up and after some hundreds of shots, most would either be of reduced weight but still useable or they'd be firewood."

Some of these bows go up to 180# - you dont make such a bow in way you describe it. It has to be well made. These bows are of excellent wood and also very well made and tilered as proven by bending some of them. What you say has no leg to stand on. How much of reduction in weight you talk about? I want to hear reasonably exact number again.
5# which a good bow might loose after hard excersise is not a big deal with bow of 130#. Neither is your claim suported by experience of heavy bow archers. Mark Strettonś italian yew bow has still sole 150#, even if it has many thousand arrows through it and it is correct MR replica. A ship with bow armament has to be still capable of fighting after some depoyment on sea.  Since there was not found many times more bows than archers  idea that would make it need to resuply bows after each battle is nonsense. There are also at least two bows in MR armament which are not issue and that means somebody brought their favorite weapons. That is not what you do with disposable item, or one which last in reasonable condition only for short span of time. I m reffering to "Black bow" and to "Azincourt"

"but neither is there any reason to imagine that they lavished the kind of care and attention that modern bowyers such as yourself and others do"

- Not really. We have after close examination of these bows reasons to believe they were actually BETTER than most of todays bowyers. Today´s best wood barelly matches the worst they had. The experience they had and also the craftsmanship specialisation is novadays matched only few english masters and I can probably name them and count on fingers of one hand. There is no sign of bad tiler, rough craftsmanship, incompetent treatment of knots or wood variation on these bows. They are perfect. If you believe these bows are badly made, or roughly made I call you to state clearly why you think so.

"if you don't like the absence of evidence  point, then try Donald Rumsfelds 'known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns'. "

Donald Rumsfeld is malicious, evil and incompetent man who helped to ruin great nation. Anybody quoting him as support of his position loses credibility at the spot.

In science only positives need to be proven. I have stated clearly why I think things, I think and they are based on research, pictorial and factual evidence and contact with archers and bowyers who can walk the walk.

If you want to post any credible points to debate here are hints:
1. Educate yourself about Occams razor
2. Only evidence is to be taken in consideration
3. A theory formulated after observation is to be verified through experiment

E.G. You claim that MR bows only lasted 600 arrows or so then they dropped in weight significantly or were reduced to firewood. But Mark and rest of lads has copies of MR bows made out of the same yew, fromf the same locality where it was harvested in medieval times, by a bowyer with mid level of experience (and to say truth the wood is somehow slightly worse in quality than on MR bows). But these bows did not dropped in weight significantly or are broken or following string excessivelly or unshootable even after several thousand arrows has been discharged through them (guess in Mark and Gwyns case probably tens of thousands).

So evidence is contrary to your claim. You have to provide solid evidence to actually suport your claim or abandon it. That is how it works.

So take alpine yew bow, shoot some thousand arrows out of it and report results for us. Plain bulshiting, without actually even naming any (original) source for claims is of no use. It only takes bandwidth.


"Its the last category I'm talking about and I for one am happier to admit that in some circumstances, there just is no convincing evidence and no amount of research is going to turn it up."

Exactly point by point please. This, as I said plain talk and golden fallacism, which does not get us anywhere.
You obviously float on this nice "We dont know everything, so we might as well dont care" fallacy - I m asking you exactly to write in points which could be debated what do you think we dont know. Name the circumstances you are talking about.



J.

[duffontap]

Chris,

If I were to buy a Yew longbow from a bowyer today, I would prefer to go through the process that Ascham describes.  After I shot it a bit I could work with the bowyer to adjust tiller, lighten the tips, polish nocks, etc.  An archer as knowledgable as Ascham could easily work in tandem with a bowyer to produce a superior bow through that process.  Stratton told me once that Simon Stanley was (or is, I can't remember) hired by a bowyer to break in bows for other customers.  Simon being the expert on how a bow should shoot--the bowyer being the expert on how to make the adjustments.  Even your bow may well have benefited from the process.  But, as Jaro says, most of a bowyer's clientle are ignorant when it comes to bowyery so the bowyer is left alone to work out the best possible bow as he sees it. 

The weight issue is a fairly simple one to me.  You take your position as firmly as I do so I see that I wont be changing your mind.  But, I would just like to hear your replies to two brief queries:
1.  How do you explain the fact that the best blue-print replications, out of the most authentic materials come out around 120-160+?  These are very big bows!  Is there any hope of building 200 blue-print replications out of high-altitude Yew and ending up with mostly 80-90# or even 100# bows?
2.  If the bows were around 70-100#s, is this the stuff of legends?  I'd bet you could randomly pick a dozen manual laborers and have them shooting 100#s in days or weeks--a couple months for the worst of them.  What kind of special training from youth do you need to pull a bow that many men with no experience with archery could pull without training or conditioning?  The average man can train into bows of 130#s easily, so why stop at 90 or 100#? 

            J. D. Duff

[ChrisD]

J.D

Wellk, as you say, ther are very trenchent views on this topic. I'm well prepared to change mine - but only if someone comes up with a hypothesis that fits all the facts - and not just the ones people like to concentrate on. Let me explain what I mean by answering your questions.

I agree that the replications made out of high altitude yew come out at 120-160lb. The problem is that we don't actually know that all of the Mary Rose bows were made of high altitude yew (which I know would have been the favoured material). All we really know is that some are big, some are slim and a few are monstrously huge. The sizes lead to the original guesstimate of 80-180lb which is widely quoted. Now I think that range is just plain silliness - its too big for a set of tools designed to do a standardised thing. Balanced against that, you have to look at the bows we do have made of similar and different yews. I have two high altitude alpine bows for example. One is slim, 1m95 between the nocks and c12cm girth in the centre and used to be 90lb at 30 inches. Another looks very big, swiss yew and 100lb at 30 ins. (about 2m5 between the nocks and c14.5cm at the girth). Significantly different looking bows, not too different starting weights and both bigger than either of the MR bows I've seen and one of them bigger than an oregon yew replica I've seen. Then we come to Glennans bow made by Don Adams (Ireland) photographed and described on the old warbow site. That thing is massive by all accounts and I'd be interested to hear how it shapes up measurement wise against the biggest MR bow. It still 'only' came out at 120lb though and just a 10% drop over a few shots would bring it into the range which I expect the majority of warbows would have occupied.
So you see wher I'm coming from here. The range in sizes of the MR bows can't be explained by saying the smaller ones were made of lower quality wood and the bigger ones of better - which is what the modern replications you've talked about have actually gone and done - and nor can it be explained by saying that they are all of the same quality wood. My view is that they all had about the same draw weight   and somewhere between 100 and 120 is where you are likely to find it. If I had to bet on a figure , it'd be closer to the low hundreds - that does perfectly well at 200yds with the lightest feasible war arrow you're likely to see. If you look at the 'experiments' in the second hardy book with 150lb bows (admittedly made of materials ALL not available to medieval bowyers), the performance so far exceed what is accepted from accounts that it more or less proves that 150lb bows weren't used.

You are absolutely right that its easy to find modern labourers - or white collar workers for that matter who could use 100lb bows after some training. Give them the sort of treatment that obtained on the Agincourt chevauchee though - 20 some days of hard marching and almost no rations - and then see what they can do. I know that some sources bemoan the weakening of the modern man with respect to our forefathers of old - but that happens in every generation. The truth about the decline of the bow in favour of the gun is that you don't have to feed a rifleman a fraction of what you have to feed an archer to keep him lethal. The medieval rachers, I believe, shot 'within themselves'. Sure, they could have handled heavier bows but success in artillery archery depends on having lots and lots of archers so you have to make sure that ALL archers can use ALL bows allowing for some sickness, starvation and the range of strengths which men have. That means lightening the draw weights a bit but keeping them high enough to keep a range of 200yds.

One small point. Many on these forums disrespect the ability of the modern man. I cannot think of one field of activity, physical or otherwise where modern men have failed to exceed the abilities of our ancient ancestors. Why would archery with replica warbows be any different?

Chris

[sagitarius boemoru]

"Then we come to Glennans bow made by Don Adams (Ireland) photographed and described on the old warbow site."

I have in my collection broken Don Adams bow. It ahs so much sapwood I can think of very elastic piece of wood, which does need extreme dimensions to build up the weight. If the bowyer wasnt lazy and chased ring down to sapwood thicnkess that on MR bows there wont be any need of such extreme dimensions. My piece os that of dimensions of baseball bat and I call it badly made.



"If you look at the 'experiments' in the second hardy book with 150lb bows (admittedly made of materials ALL not available to medieval bowyers), the performance so far exceed what is accepted from accounts that it more or less proves that 150lb bows weren't used."

Admitedly which ones materia is not availble to medieval bowyers? The fiberglass flatbow in tests is included to actually have comparition to modern bow. New records by Stanley and by Mark are shot with italian yew selfbows and these only further strenghten what we know.

"I know that some sources bemoan the weakening of the modern man with respect to our forefathers of old - but that happens in every generation."

Care to include some verifable proof?


"One small point. Many on these forums disrespect the ability of the modern man. I cannot think of one field of activity, physical or otherwise where modern men have failed to exceed the abilities of our ancient ancestors. Why would archery with replica warbows be any different?"

I can think of couple archery and athletics being one of them. We cannot actually yet match pre WW2 wooden bow flight records, altough some of best bowyers and  archers labouring hard to do that.  Anyway. Your assumption is that - they did not even shoot as far as we do, the bare minimum they were requred to shoot was actually standart, not a minimum. That is not acceptable in the light of recorded tudor and post tudor distances at various marks, which are long even for light arrows.

I call you again to produce some numbers or sources to back your claims. I adressed your points in my previous discussion. If you dont care to answer so be it, but I m sure everybody reading it will get the picture.

J.

[ChrisD]

No problem with answering Jaro - I was talking to J.D that time because he asked a couple of excellent questions which merited a prompt reply. I don't actually have that much time to spend on this forum so my posts will likely appear at the same time of an evening.

Now what have we heard from you so far eh?

1) The warbow buying public are generally ignorant
2) You can get 100000 shots from a replica warbow without significant deterioration - yeah right.
3) You believe that a tudor bowyer working in a mass production environment [which had to be regulated in order to maintain standards (Hardy and Strickland p23) was more assiduous than the few modern bowyers making these bespoke articles for a living and providing a guarantee.
4)You have disparaged the work of Don Adams - who at least is a bowyer who has actually published work albeit a while ago
5) You took the bait on my Donald Rumsfeld comment which was an invitation for you to go for the man rather than the ball. I was just curious to see whether you'd bite thats all. For your information, I'm no fan of the neocons but I can see when even someone I don't like talks sense.

With regard to Occams Razor - my explanation to J.D of the sizes of the MR bows and why I think the poundages were what I believe they were is actually a model of Occams Razor in that it is consistent with all that is known about the MR bows as well as what is known about modern replicas and in particular, it requires no superlatives abilities of anybody or anything in the system - archers, wood, bows or bowyers. Above average yes, superlative no.

Why do I not quote my sources? Two reasons. Firstly,  I'm not sure if you've noticed but I may as well point it out. You are unique in the extent and degree to which you quote sources on the site. Its your right, I have no problem with it, however it may also have escaped your notice that its an open forum for hobbyists, the merely curious, young people - basically everybody. It isn't a scientific forum and I for one have no desire or appetite to shove the extent of my learning or interest in this topic down everybodies throat. What I've said so far is verifiable with little effort apart from where its only my opinion (and that will be obvious to any discerning raeder) and I've left my e-mail address available to anybody who wants to get in touch. Having said all that, I'm prepared to make a couple of exceptions just for you and just this once.

Second reason is this. Warbow archery is a niche interest of a small field where I come from. There are people here who make a living out of it and others trying to make a living. I try to be sensitive to that fact and not antagonise or jeopardise those people by quoting them while they are still active - they can speak for themselves if they want to. At the same time, a forum like this is an interesting and useful exercise for exchange of information amongst people who are prepared to accept differences of opinion - but thats all they are, opinions.

To answer some of your points. Yes it was the Luttrell Psalter and so what if it was the 1340s? In 1365 Edward 111 issued the same sort of proclamations as you describe (Connections, pub James Burke, 1981 p 66). That just goes to show that nothing changed between tudor times and earlier medieval times. Nothing stupid there.

What materials were used in the Hardy experiment I refer to. Well, as you say, a fibreglass flatbow and longbow of oregon yew. Its a poor piece of scientific writing as the string isn't mentioned but you can bet it was man made fibre. I suppose the horn nocks were available to a tudor bowyer - so I'll give you that much. Oh yes the reference is Hardy and Strickland page 408. I should also say that the MR bow made by Roy King all those years ago only came out at 105lb and 1m87cm between the nocks. It was actually shorter (I'm told) than the bow upon which it was based - as a bowyer you'll know where this is going so I won't bore you with the details.

You seem to object to my suggestion that it is common for people to extol the virtues of the past at the expense of the modern age. Well, its hard to start with something so common and well known. I doubt you are a fan of cricket, but if you were, yesterday you would have heard Geoffrey Boycott suggesting that his mum armed with a stick of rhubarb could have defeated an English medium pace bowler. Thats the sort of hyperbole I'm talking about - maybe its not so common where you are from, buts its standard here. If you want references, check out the British Medical Press where you'll find people talking about how modern surgeons are trained on 9000 hours of surgery while my generation had to do 36000. All rubbish of course but its what people like to believe.

On your bit of Don Adams bow - well who broke it. This is my whole point after all.

What do you mean 'there was not often found more bows than archers'. The MR bows are the only find of note - there is no index with which to compare so you can't make any comment. And were the black bow and Agincourt really used - or were they just in a different condition? Either way, if they still did what they were meant to do, then why not bring them? The presence of only two used bows amongst 137 unused ones would indicate a short life - not a long one I remember reading of a fancy that Agincourt looked like an old timer but please tell me that nobody believes the thing was 130 years old when the ship went down.

My statement that the bows tended towards 80 inches should be taken thus. Your figures show that if you make a bar chart with bow length on the x axis and number of bows on the y axis, then you get a normal distribution with a skew to the right. If you accept that they were of similar weights, then the obvious inference is that the properties of the wood was very heterogenous - which supports my view that there was nothing uniformly superlative about the quality of the wood. Thats all I meant. Your insistence on precise analysis of individual bows  stops you seeing whats right under your nose.

I'd love to experiment - but I'm a surgeon, not a bowyer - I'll leave it to the likes of Pip Bickerstaffe and others who as I have said is a good scientific thinker and has the access and ability to do that kind of work

Dunno where you get your ideas on Simon Stanley. Ask him what he thinks of Italian yew whenever you see him. Last time I saw him(and I've met him only twice) he was using a laminate Osage/yew and I think hickory backed bow.

What athletics? What records on flight shooting where the break wasn't due to advances in materials?

C

[SimonUK]

There's nothing like a good fight in the warbow section....

[alanesq]

On the subject of what draw weight the bows would have been, just thought I would pass on my experiences so far of taking up the warbow:

I am reasonably large built but I work in I.T. and have never done any job or hobby which involves a lot of heavy work lifting etc.
I took up archery around 1 year ago but up until January I was shooting a 65lb bow (28" draw)
I do not do any training other than shooting my bows once or twice a week
Around 1 month ago I bought a new bow which is 130lbs at 32", it was VERY heavy for me and I didn't know if I would ever manage to fully draw it but now after only a few weeks I can shoot this bow surprisingly comfortably and it gets easier every time I use it    (I have checked the draw weight and it has not dropped yet - I wondered if this was why myself ;-)

The point I wanted to make is that if I can pull 130lbs after a few months of not very intensive use of warbows I find it difficult to imagine that professional archers who had been shooting these bows since boyhood would be shooting bows much lighter than mine ??