European Archery/ Agincourt/crecy/etc

[Chris Evans]

Hi Timo,

Originally Posted by Timo Nieminen

Clearly, the longbow, and English archery in general, was effective (at least often enough to justify the investment). Perhaps not the superweapon it is sometimes claimed to be. Better to appreciate the weapon for the reality, rather than the fiction.

At one stage of my life I played around with bows and crossbows and even owned a real English long bow. Based on my experiences, my suspicion was that as a weapon of war it was probably more effective against slowly advancing armoured infantry, rather than heavy cavalry. Galloping horses at 20mph (30ft/sec) can close the range of a bow, say 900ft in around 30sec or thereabouts, not giving all that much time to shower them with arrows, but foot soldiers would have allowed for much more time.

But, as always, troop dispositions, coordination, battlefield terrain and so on were far more important than weaponry.

Cheers
Chris