Islamic bow for I.D. and comment

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by Timo Nieminen

Another online publication of interest:

Bernard A. Boit, "The Fruits of Adversity: Technical Refinements of the
Turkish Composite Bow During the Crusading Era", MA thesis, The Ohio State University, 1991.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a243362.pdf

it ignores the use of metal lammelar armour and mail used by byzantine cataphracti and the sassanids, and turks, all of which used recurved horsebows, only mentioning the light leather lamella used by some other muslim light cavalry. they also armoured their horses.

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by kronckew

it ignores the use of metal lammelar armour and mail used by byzantine cataphracti and the sassanids, and turks, all of which used recurved horsebows, only mentioning the light leather lamella used by some other muslim light cavalry. they also armoured their horses.

Light leather lamellar is a myth, anyway. The lamella need to be thick enough to be effective - about 3mm rawhide or more. All of it is overlapped to give you at least double thickness everywhere (side-by-side overlap), so rows are 6mm thick. If you again double the thickness by vertical overlap of the rows, you have 12mm, for about the same weight as 2mm iron/steel plate (without even considering the weight of the lacing).

Take that 3mm rawhide lamellar, and wear it on top of a mail shirt (as was common), and it isn't light armour at all.