From: conrad@pico.OZ (Conrad Drake)
Subject: Re: Muskets and Archery
Organization: QPSX Communications
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 17:18:38 GMT


From conrad@pico.OZ (Conrad Drake)

dasher!patter@uunet.UU.NET (24224-guthrie) writes:
: >>I said -
: >>The Japanese short bow doesn't have
: >>anything like the penetration of the English longbow. And it's easy to
: >>imagine how rapidly the power of the samurai (based, as it was, mainly
: >>on swordsmanship) would have been eroded if firearms had become prevalent.
: 
: >Joseph replies -
: >Also Samurai power wasn't so much sword based as cavalry based. The Samurai
: >were originally all mounted bowmen and their bows are hardly short!
: 
: That was sloppy terminology on my part. The Samurai filled a niche in Japan
: which was similar to that of a knight in Europe and was, as you say, really
: based on the horse. However, the Japanese bows which I have seen (both in
: the movie mentioned above and elsewhere) looked to be about four to five
: feet long. That's shorter than the English bow. I must admit that I've
: never seen a real one, though.
:
Well, while peneration is a nebulous term at the best of times, the
japanese bow is certainly good at it.  The bow has an extremely long
draw (back past the ear) and a very well developed armor peircing head.

While we're on penetration, several US natives had bows capable of the
pin-the-cavalry-ot-the-horse trick (You Yankees should learn y'own
history;-).  The top Japanese bows could put arrows through several
(occupied) suits of armour.  However the prize for "best recorded shot"
goes to a middle eastern king who was recorded to have shot an arrow
through 3 palm-thick targets of bronze! Which brings us to "mongol"
bows.
 
: >Also the Mongol (very)shortbow had much greater pull than the English longbow
: >and hence long range etc etc. This was achieved through compressing animal
: >horn and streching animal tendons to give the super bow of the middle ages.
: 
: True enough - there was a photo in Smithsonian of one a Mongol horseman
: (taken about 1920) in full regalia. The bow looked quite heavy and was a
: neat recurve design about 3.5' long. I particularly liked the scabard.
: Either that or another Smithsonian article last year stated that the pull
: on these things ran as high as 150 pounds!
:
Now this form of composite construction had been going on for a very
long time: it is well recorded in the Euphrates & biblical Egypt.  The
highest draw rate I can find reference is to a bow "estimated at 220#"
Hmm.  One group in that region (the Turks?) specialised in long range
competions,  and commerative markers were raised when records were set.
Of the top of my head (sorry!) the longest record shot was over 1000
yards, and set several hundred years ago. 
: I'm not so sure of its claim to be the "super-bow", though. In his book on
: bow hunting, Fred Bear claims that, until the advent of modern materials,
: the English longbow took the prize for range and hitting power. According

Well, my reference is a book called "the Grey Goose Wing", a history of
Archery.  I'll dig it up when I get home this evening (this morning?)
and get a full reference.  
---
"There's something stirring in my loins and it isn't the spirit of Jesus"
                - Helen Razor, JJJ announcer, 1992.

Email: conrad@pico.qpsx.oz.au
Snail: QPSX Communications, Private Bag 24, West Perth 6005, Australia. 
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