From: arrow@milton.u.washington.edu (Ken Martin)
Subject: Combat Archery
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 21:20:57 GMT

After *finally* having caught up on this group, I'll add in my 3 cents
to the combat archery discussion (inflation, you know).

First off, to re-introduce myself after having been gone from the rialto
for a year, I'm Alan Fletcher, an archer/light fighter from the
Madrone/Blatha An Oir area (Seattle/Tacoma).  I also BS with Lord
Julian, the Royal Archer of An Tir fairly often, so I do have a fairly
good idea of what I'm talking about.

I believe it was Hal who mentioned something about An Tir not fielding
any archers at the An Tir/West War.  I wasn't able to attend myself, but
several of my friends did, who intended to put some arrows into the
Westies.  Then they found that West war archery rules were being
enforced, which meant that all of their arrows were illegal.  This would
be a good explanation of why we weren't able to field any archers, as
most of our archers were not informed beforehand of what the equipment
rules were.  (I don't know West's war arrow specifications, so I won't
try to comment on them, but I will specify An Tir's war arrow rules.)

An Tir's war arrow specifications are that you take a normal arrow, and
cut the pile off such that there is NO metal on it, and the wood is a
flat tip.  Then take a standard 11/32 birdie blunt (the usual ones used
are black, with a 3 letter manufacturer's name on the end which I can't
remember (MLF?)) and glue a 3/4" stiff leather pad to the front of it
and put it on the arrow.  Then tape the entire arrow from the front of
the fletchings all the way down, covering the leather pad.  I've seen
electrical, strapping, and duct tape, I don't know what other types of
tape might be legal.  Maximum arrow length is 28 inches from where the
shaft and blunt intersect to the inside of the *nock*.  And, of course,
the bow may be a maximum of 30 pounds.

As for figuring out the maximum poundage of a war crossbow in An Tir,
here's what the ABC (An Tir Book of Combat) says: The crossbow may have
a maximum poundage of 630 inch-pounds.  This number was derived by
assuming a 7-inch fistmele on a standard recurve/longbow, thus leaving
21 inches multiplied by 30 pounds.  The number of inches on the crossbow
is calculated by measuring from the string when it is uncocked to the
string-holder/trigger thingamajig.  You know what I'm talking about.  It
holds the string when the crossbow is loaded.  (Note: I'm highly
prejudiced against crossbows and I admit it, so take some of this with a
grain of salt.  But I'm certain that the above numbers are correct.)

I've forgotten who it was who mentioned that he'd much rather face a
golf-tube arrow than a real one, here's some information that will
probably allay your discomforts: At a mere 20 yards, if you're paying
attention to the archer who's drawn a bead on you, there's a good chance
that you can dodge out of the way no matter how accurate the shot is.
At 30 or 40 yards I've seen 2 archers shoot shot after shot after shot
at each other and consistently they've been able to dodge those shots
that were accurate.  But the fear factor/adrenaline rush you get when
seeing an arrow coming straight at *you* is incredible.  At my first
war, I was borrowing a heavy's old armor, and at one point I heard a
thud, looked down, saw an arrow on the ground pointing at me, looked up
at the tower and saw an archer looking straight at me.  This was enough
to clue me in to the fact that I was dead, though I never felt a thing.

Then, at May Crown 2 years ago, we were able to hold a war archery
tournament, where each archer stands ~15 yards apart in a 10-foot
diameter circle.  Each has 6 arrows with which to kill his opponent.  In
practice, I was shot in the thigh, when I was wearing only jeans to
protect my leg (I'm not that stupid any more, I have *LEG* armor now....
:) It hurt.  But I just went down to my knees and placed an arrow dead
center in his chest.  The next day I had a bruise approximately 8 inches
in diameter, and it hurt like hell, but I'm still going out there and
fighting as often as I can.

As for the "heavies vs. lights" argument/attitudes.  I haven't seen a
lot of archers gloating/being snotty, etc.  But I very much understand
it.  I've gotten very frustrated at heavy's attitudes here.  I can
understand a heavy not feeling an arrow, and I don't mind that, I just
shoot 'em again.  But I've also seen heavies walking towards combat,
completely unengaged, get hit dead center chest with an arrow, look
down, stomp on the arrow, and keep moving forward.  *THAT* is
frustrating to an archer.  This year I've seen archers (war and target,
both) treated like dirt at most of the events I've been to.  May Crown
had the archery range 7 *miles* from the site.  July Coronation we were
stuck with a logging road that only allowed 2 butts and 3 archers on the
line at a time.  I've had bad luck making it to wars much myself.
Cavalier *Light* War had no target range at all, and about 1/3 or less
of the battles allowed missile weapons.  I realize that it's probably
just bad luck, but if the situations which caused the problems had
happened to the heavy fighters, I feel fairly confident that more would
have been done about it.

Argh.  I apologize for going on a ranting/raving session.  I really
shouldn't, but it's been getting rather frustrating to me.  Anyway,
please don't take offense at anything I may have said, it wasn't meant
to be offensive to anyone, but it was meant to be informative.

--Alan Fletcher
arrow@u.washington.edu
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca