Hello everyone,
There’s a scene in the movie Arthur in which two opposing armies face each other on the frozen surface of a lake. One commander calls an archer forward to test the range, to determine if they were in fact able to engage the enemy with the bow and arrow. He draws and sends his Hollywood prop through the air with a whiz. His arrow lands twenty yards in front of Arthur’s men, and skitters harmlessly across the ice. Out of range. Needing nothing more for encouragement, Arthur’s men (and Ms. Keira Knightly) begin launching volley after volley of arrows right into the mass of the enemy. An enemy made impotent by inferior archery tackle?—there’s no Hollywood sensationalization needed—it has happened.
What made the English longbowmen so successful? They were not the only ones out on the battlefield with longbows. The Yew war bow with its classic D-section (D-ish, we’ll talk about cross-sections another day) and D-tiller was and is very practical but hardly revolutionary. Unless you use an ordinary bow in a special way, ordinary results will be achieved. The answer has to come from how the bow was used. Namely—what kind of arrows were used and what kind of draw was used?
We are fortunate to have recovered so many arrows from the Mary Rose (Approximately 3,500). These arrows give us a bit of a window to see how the bow might have been used. Many of the arrows that were found on the Mary Rose were in collections of 24, in the remains of the standard arrow bags. In these bags (which were mostly deteriorated) were leather disks containing a variety of arrows that ranged in length from about 27” to about 31 1/2”. The heads and fletchings were of course long gone.
What this tells us, is that each arrow bag contained arrows that would permit a draw of up to between 30-31 1/2”. History tells us that the English draw was not always anchored at the same length like we do today, but drawn right past the ear—until the point touched the hand. This style allows for a very long draw from a relatively short archer. And this length of draw allows for very high energy storage.
Many of you, perhaps most of you, are familiar with Tim Baker’s ‘Bow Design and Performance’ chapter in Vol. 1 of the Traditional Bowyer’s Bible. If not, it is required reading. I’m a bit of a rebel, and I delight in disagreeing with Mr. Baker, but I reference this chapter often, and I willingly admit my debt to him for advancing my understanding of energy storage—and how to demonstrate it on a force-draw curve. Well, if you’re familiar with this chapter, or its equivalent, you shouldn’t have much trouble understanding why the English made their bows long in the first place. High weights, and stacked bellies (thick rather than wide in section) are safest when made very long. But 80” is much longer than needed for 100-180# bows drawing 26-28”. There are benefits to overbuilding a bow—Comstock style—but there are reasonable limits. Take that same 80” bow and draw it 31+” and you’ve:
1. Stored way more energy.
2. Made a very long bow very efficient.
Modern tests confirm the effectiveness of this long draw—many archers drawing their war bow replicas to 32”. Force draw curves also confirm this. If you look at a graph of a force-draw curve, adding four inches to your draw practically doubles your energy storage. If you take two opposing armies and outfit them with the same bows, with one drawing 27-28” and the other drawing 30-32”, the archers who draw further will shoot much further, can use heavier arrows, and can engage an enemy that cannot return lethal shots.
Ironically, it may have been the English Long Arrow that that made the English Longbow so famous.
J. D. Duff
