Whether you have to do a report, or you're writing a story, or you're just interested in how medieval lads got gory widdit, below you'll find enough info (and even a few literature references!) to satsify your need for hewing and hacking for weeks to come.
The following exchange occurred on Speculations Rumor Mill (a message board for spec fiction writers; you don't have
to subscribe to the quarterly spec fiction market gold mine known as Speculations to participate, but usually people who become involved in the RM end up subscribing, because it's so valuable for a writer).
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Message #911 left by Mary on Dec 7, 1999 at 18:45

Given a pseudo-medieval setting, what sort of care would an archer have to give to his bow and arrows (besides unstringing the box) to keep them in working order? If any? (It's really interesting, trying to prove a negative.)
 

Message #915 left by Andrew on Dec 8, 1999 at 4:14

Mary, a good reference for the reasons the longbow got replaced by the musket, despite having better range and rate of fire (the accuracy is a myth) and being lots cheaper is Featherstone's (and I'm not sure of this title, since I'm posting from work, a good thirty miles from my bookshelves) "Tactics in the Era of Pike and Shot".

To summarise, an archer:

Must keep his bow reasonably dry and oiled/greased to keep the damp out,

Must not keep his bow or bowstring under tension except when he's actually using it, or the string will stretch and the wood of the bow will conform to the stressed shape.

must keep his bowstring dry at all times. If it gets wet, he has to throw it away - natural fibre is a lot less forgiving than modern materials.

He can't shoot in the rain (his bowstring will get wet and stretch) and anyway his arrows won't fly true (see below)

He can't shoot in the cold, unless he's kept his bow warm. The wood gets brittle and out outer curve of the bow will fail in tension.

He can't shoot kneeling or prone, or from cover. Anything that will foul his shooting action doesn't just make it harder, it makes it impossible.

He can't shoot if he's in close formation with other troops. He needs about three times the elbow room of a musket-armed infantryman.

He can't shoot unless he's in prime fighting condition and trained to the bow from an early age. (these guys had huge back and shoulder muscles). Tired, underfed and sick archers are basically blank files, which is why there were never many of them. They couldn't be drawn from the underfed villeins.

His arrows have to be kept dry and stored vertically, or they'll warp and cease to fly true. The feathered flights have to be kept dry as well, and their performance is affected by atmospheric humidity.

No doubt there's more, but I imagine this will do to be going on with.
 

Message #917 left by Alan on Dec 8, 1999 at 8:46

Andrew/Mary to add to your discussion.

The "English" longbow wasn't in common use until well after the subjugation of Wales. Wales is the country of origin of the "English" longbow. I could look up the exact date if you made me. The main reason for it's success over the traditional bow (which was notoriously under powered and inaccurate) is the fact that the pull was long right back to the ear, rather than towards the chest. Composite bows were quite good but they tended to separate in the rain (the glue holding the horn togther would disolve).

One other point about the disadvantages of arrows. In square formation longbowmen were useless. Also, a quiver of arrows takes far more room than a pouch full of cartridges. At 75 yards a volley from "Brown Bess" was devastating. Especially at the height of the Napoleonic wars when the English rate of fire was 3 volleys per minute. Of course, a rippling fire (from one end of the line to the other) was also damned effective.
 

Message #920 left by Andrew on Dec 8, 1999 at 11:27

Regarding the Welsh longbow: it was two hundred years from the annexation of Wales to the height of the Longbow's power in the Hundred Years' war, by which time it had spread throughout England and Scotland (the Scots were the last to deploy the Longbow in action, in the 17th Century!). As an Englishman, I am in theory committing a criminal offence by not practicing
with my longbow every Sunday - the law was never repealed.

On the subject of the Brown Bess volley: effective range was 50 yards (the "whites of their eyes" comment came from the Crimean War, fifty years after the Peninsular), at which range it was optimistically accurate for target shooting (the bullet could veer by up to six feet from a true line, in any direction, over that distance) but in mass and aimed at a mass target (such as a thousand advancing Frenchmen) it was quite useful.

3 rounds per minute was the standard required of a recruit fresh from the crimper; a good battalion could deliver four or five volleys a minute with smoothbores. The Rifle regiments (who didn't fire in volleys anyway) got two or three shots a minute, but could kill at four or five hundred yards, and the record was 800 yards (Rifleman Plunkett, of the 95th. Damned if I can
remember the name of the French general he offed, or how long it took him to drink the fifty guineas he got for his shooting).

The French, whose armies didn't train with live ammunition and prized elan in a bayonet attack and fast strategic movement over musketry, got 3 rounds per minute out of their best troops, and many French battalions didn't do much better than two.

The rippled volley, or "platoon fire" was designed to flay the head of an attacking column: it gave the victims of each volley time to drop out of the way of the following volley (all 800 shots at once rips the front rank to pieces, but musket balls don't penetrate) and keeps the fire constant for enhanced morale effect.

If the enemy is all reloading, you've got ten seconds to cover fifty yards with bayonet and raw courage. If they're still giving you a 40-shot platoon volley every second or two, you start to reflect on how little l'Empereur is
paying you for this...

Oh, and other advantages of the musket over the bow: it takes a week to train a musketeer, and ten years to train an archer. Arrows are works of craftsmanship, and bullets can be made in batches of two or three thousand at a time. You can use a musket as a club in a pinch, and a bayonet makes it a serviceable spear; hit someone with a bow and you've ruined it.
 

Message #921 left by Barry Hollander on Dec 8, 1999 at 12:21

Sheesh, Andrew. Your description of muskets and bows above (#920) was more interesting than the last couple of short stories I've read.
 

Message #922 left by Gregory Koster on Dec 8, 1999 at 12:40

Barry is right. Say Andrew, have you ever thought of trying to outdo C.S. Forester's DEATH TO THE FRENCH? You've got the knowhow. Why not give it a try?

Terry, thanks, but it is really a 500,000 volume public library that is dazzling you, not me. Besides, I look even more foolish than usual.

Best regards,
Gregory Koster
 

Message #923 left by Alan on Dec 8, 1999 at 14:01

Andrew, I knew you wouldn't let me down. I purposely did not provide anything other than the "standard" rate ofm fire. There were some battalions/companies that were so poorly officered that they never attained the field rate of 5 volleys. Remember the fifth volley was usually not tamped but forced down by hitting the but of the musket against the ground. I won't even get into the field method of cleaning out a dirty musket barrel.

Also 50 yards is for accurate fire. But at 75 yards a volley or platoon fire was devastating when aimed towards a columns which was the standard French deployment (or any other mass of bodies moving towards you).

As to the Rifle plattoons/companies they were generally deployed as skirmishers. Three rounds na minute would be damn good for them as they had to wrap a leather patch around the ball so as to make use of the rifling in the barrel. If they ignored the patch, which happened in tight situations, then the could load as fast as a musket, but they weren't any more accurate.
Rifles were more prone to clogging.

Now, back to the longbow. It was far superior to the regular bow. Crossbows may have had the same power but they were notoriously slow to load. I have a book detailing the GBR battles from Hastings to 1750. It details the weapons used, the deployment and the outcome. It's a nice supplement to any s&S writer's bookshelf. If you need that type of info then send me an email.
 

Message #924 left by John Savage on Dec 8, 1999 at 15:21

On longbows v. crossbows:

There's quite a bit of evidence that the English preference for (and championing of) the crossbow was due as much to the fact that the majority of medieval crossbowmen were mercenaries as anything else. En masse, go with the longbow (which, incidentally, is an indirect-fire weapon--in battle, one shoots in an arc). Individually, the stopping power of a crossbow,
particularly when the enemy is less than 60 meters away (probably enabling the enemy to close to inside effective range before the next shot goes off), can be the difference. Both can penetrate plate; a square hit from a crossbow will knock a knight off a horse, even on the shield.

The real problem with the crossbow isn't rate of fire (which, using a goat's foot, was equal to or better than the Brown Bess); it's reliability. Although they're simple, the additional moving parts in a crossbow (as compared to a longbow) make a difference.

As far as projectiles go, an arrow was indeed a bit of craftsmanship, particularly flight (longest-range) arrows. The crossbow bolt was much less so, being basically a metal rod with fins. The bullet (or, more properly, musket ball), on the other hand, was actually cast by each soldier in the field until Marlborough introduced the modern ammunition system.

And you cannot use a musket as a club and then expect it to do anything but misfire. The barrel is too soft, and deforms quite easily. The advantage of the bayonet is that the force of contact is concentrated along the axis of the weapon (the strongest direction).
 

Message #925 left by Mary on Dec 8, 1999 at 16:51

Err, Andrew, the "whites of their eyes" comment was from the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution. (Before, not after, the Napolenic wars. :) Though maybe it got repeated.

Bunker Hill was the last battle in the American Revolution where the British charged entrenched American troops. The soldiers took the advice about the whites of their eyes, and naturally found that the gaudier uniforms were easier to aim at. One British regiment was, at the end of the day, commanded by its senior private.
 

Message #926 left by RSWebb on Dec 8, 1999 at 16:55

Re Andrew's comments, one of my pet peeves is sword and sorcery where archery is portrayed as requiring less strength than dueling with a sword. If anything the reverse is true; trying to overpower someone in a sword duel is clumsy and quite possibly suicidal technique. Arnold Schwarzenegger would make a superb archer, but I have serious doubts he would last long in a
sword duel, especially running around naked, as slow moving as he is.
 

Message #927 left by Andrew on Dec 8, 1999 at 18:06

Bunker Hill? Well, I never knew that. I know it was also uttered at Balaclava, when the Argyll & Sufferings made history as the Thin Red Streak (Thin Red Line was a later interpolation; Russell had "streak" in his original report for the Times).

John, clubbed musket wasn't in the drill book for the reason you give, sure, but there was enough wood in a Brown Bess to give you a reasonable chance of getting away with belting someone with it. And it was frequently so used, infantrymen being what they were back then. (The other classic was the standard issue British Cavalry Trooper, who was notorious for being so poor
at sword drill that his sabre was basically a glorified knuckle-duster.)

Gregory: Yes, I've had some ideas in that direction, hence the large stack of "three chapters and a synopsis" on the desk beside me here. A fantasy novel with the smell of black powder about it. And if anyone mentions Mary Gentle, I'm going to crawl under my desk and gibber for a while.

RSWebb: Actually, Arnie wouldn't be that good a longbowman, albeit he'd be better than most. His muscle development is for balance and aesthetic effect. He hasn't got the hypertrophied arms and back muscles that come from drawing the longbow from before puberty: archers can be identified from their skeletons!

Finally, two good references for this lot:

Armies and Warfare in the Pike and Shot Era, Featherstone, (pub Constable, ISBN 0094784108) Excellent, clear, copiously illustrated and the bibliography's a good reading list in itself.

Keegan, A History of Warfare, Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-9850-7. Also highly recommended: Keegan's about the best there is currently writing for military history - in this one he sets out a theory of warfare that settles Clausewitz nicely, since Keegan covers everything from primitive coup-counting to Kahnian Spasm warfare. Again, the bibliography is all the reading list you're likely to need for researching this stuff.
 

Message #928 left by Martin on Dec 8, 1999 at 18:07

re:- the stopping power of a longbow. There are documented cases of an armoured knight being shot through the thigh and pinned to his horse because the arrow had gone right through the horse and through his leg on the other side.
 

Message #929 left by Alan on Dec 8, 1999 at 21:24

Yay, look at all this lovely info.

John: that was a reasonably late crossbow development. At least from the info I have. No matter, I haven't tried/timed the potential rate of fire so I'll believe you that it could equal, or exceed, a Brown Bess. Also, you raised an excellent point. The method of fire of the two weapons and the complexity difference.

If I remember the drill correctly from an 1800's traning manual it was; step thrust,twist pull, step, ....

Now on to the Cavalry Sabre. During 1800-1814 the sabre became a clumsy hunk of steel. It was not meant for finesse. It was meant to smash down on an infantryman and casue the most damage possible. Cavalrymen weren't skilled swordsman. They were mostly young noblemen and such out for a lark. There is case after case documenting the problems that commanders had in controlling and keeping discipline in the ranks of the cavalry. The Prince of [mind stall and too lazy to look it up] almost cost the Lord Wellington the battle of Waterloo. In fact, the British cavalry were massacred after reaching the French guns. They became surrounded by the core of Napoleons army and they vanished.

RSWebb: The strength requirements are different. For a swordsman it's in the wrist and forearm. Yes, it's a wee bit different if you want to move to a broadsword.
 

Message #930 left by Jay Arr on Dec 8, 1999 at 22:06

And, of course, the batle of Bunker Hill was actually fought on nearby Breed's Hill.

I had most of this information in my head in a very hazy way, but I'm amazed that people actually remember it in such detail. Right about the sabre. Usually very heavy near the end of the blade because it's intended to slash downward from horseback. But not balanced well enough for the kind of sabre fights you see in movies.

Couple of questions: Longbowmen usually had minimal training in close-up fighting. It seems a waste of archers, but I've read that archers usually joined in the face-to-face battle after their arrows were used up (???). How many arrows would a typical archer have carried? Captured longbowmen often had their index fingers chopped off?
 

Message #932 left by Lenora Rose on Dec 9, 1999 at 2:54

As somebody who does archery with a bunch of medieval fanatics:  When they excavated the Mary Rose from the ocean, they found a whole lot of skeletons with strange bone development in the arms and shoulders. Exceedingly thick and shortened upper arm, and longer and also thickened lower right. Essentially, these people would have looked very abnormal; but
were obviously amazingly strong. Nobody could figure out why until they found one with his bow still close to hand. The longbow was essentially a long stick tapered towards the center with the marks at top and bottom to hold the string. A normal archer today using a modern longbow or recurve is usually pulling between 40 and 70 pounds; sometimes eighty or up it they're
built like redwoods. A medieval longbowman was pulling a weight of close to 150. Modern archers aren't doing this for life or country; we're smart enough to stick to weights that only require ordinary strength, not disfigurement. But in their day, they probably weren't looked at twice; the words rains of arrows are quite accurate in some battles.

No medieval longbow lasted much more than a year, even in best treatment, before losing most of its worth. They had to be replaced pretty often even if they were taken care of; and the effort it took for a bowyer to make good yew longbows (The full process takes about a year itself, I believe) ensured that at the rate of deterioration, a bowyer had a very full-time job for
life. he'd no sooner sell a bow than have to start on its replacement; and the many others in progress. The same for arrows; but they also warp slightly over time from going around the bow in their flight.

The stuff about wetness is true even today, if your bow doesn't have a fibreglass coat, or has a scratch in it. Modern fletching is better, but wet arrows do warp (I should know; I've got one that's suffered for that already), and even modern strings can soften. To some extent, a good archer can compensate for the first stages of trouble with his bow (Damp, slight stretching), to the point of effectiveness in battle, if not necessarily effectiveness in deer-killing. But only the first stages; after that, it's too late. So a sensible archer will avoid getting his weapon wet, or in excess cold, and will oil it regularly (Not necessary in modern shooting.)

Interestingly, there are modern archers who can do two-arrow tricks, or three arrow. I doubt any medieval archer could, or would waste the time and arrows (Which break a lot, especially in harder targets, Including wood) to practice it, the way these goofs do. He was either hunting food, or shooting the enemy in battle; in either case, no time or reason to nock two arrows.
One at a time works better for either purpose.

A good archer can shoot six arrows in thirty seconds with relative accuracy. A really good one can shoot eight, but don't count on it.

A longbowman couldn't shoot from kneeling; but someone with an ordinary-sized (And weaker and less high-quality/less accurate) bow can.
 

Message #933 left by John Savage on Dec 9, 1999 at 10:31

As far as archers being trained in hand-to-hand, the best records are probably those from Agincourt (1415). Henry V ensured that each member of the archery battles was issued a relatively narrow dagger. After their arrows were exhausted (basically breaking the French first and second lines of cavalry and causing severe havoc with the first and second lines of heavy
infantry), the archers started skipping out between the stakes put up to protect them. They were looking for two things: arrows, and high-ranking nobles to capture for ransom.

Henry's archers were smart enough to keep in groups of two or three. When coming upon a dismounted knight or confused infantryman, one would dance around in front to distract the armored (and relatively immobile) Frenchman, while the other(s) slipped behind and bashed said Frenchman in the head with their mattocks (small sledgehammer, issued to each soldier to drive the previously mentioned stakes into the ground). This would at least stun the knight, at which point they'd swarm him and find out his ransom. If his ransom was enough to be worthwhile, they'd disarm him and drag him behind their own line. If not that's what those thin daggers were for. They were thin enough to slip between the slots or bars on a knight's helm.

I heartily concur with Andrew's recommendation of Keegan, too. A writer can do much worse than read The Face of Battle and The Mask of Command, too. As a (former) professional military historian (yes, I got paid for it!), one of the things that irritates me the most is to see late-twentieth-century concepts of command and control imposed on medieval-like armies without any fuss or misunderstanding at all. And then there are those large standing armies . . . a notion of which Keegan will disabuse you quite rapidly.
 

Message #934 left by Andrew on Dec 9, 1999 at 12:46

While the subject of cavalry sabres is live, the Heavy Cavalry sabre of the Peninsular war, or at least the standard issue ones that the troopers (as distinct from the more aristocratic officers, who could afford better) had were mass-produced ones stamped with the legend "warranted never to fail."

Now that's what I call watertight product liability...

On longbows: they don't take that long to make - the lamination between heartwood and sapwood occurs naturally and it's just a question of cutting the right bit out of the tree (saving the rest to make furniture with), seasoning it (stacking somewhere to dry out) and cutting it to shape with a spokeshave. It's a couple of man-days' work and a lot of waiting, basically.
 

Message #935 left by Martin on Dec 9, 1999 at 16:18

re message 929 - I think the nobleman in question was the Prince of Orange. If you ever get a chance to see any of the TV films that have been made of the 'Sharpe' series of books by Bernard Cornwell then watch them. The setting and costuming is pretty authentic.
 

Message #936 left by Rigel on Dec 9, 1999 at 17:11

In response to message #915

> He can't shoot kneeling or prone, or from cover. Anything that > will foul his shooting action  > doesn't just make it harder, it makes it impossible.

> He can't shoot if he's in close formation with other troops. He > needs about three times the  > elbow room of a  musket-armed infantryman.

Having been both an archer and soldier, I would dispute these two points. I can fire a bow kneeling or lying prone (also lying on my back with the bow across the bottoms of my feet). And I don't need more room for the bow than I ever did for a rifle.

On all other points I am in agreement. Most of these point do not apply to modern arrows which tend to be fibre-glass or aluminum. Although, modern bows still need to be stored unstrung and in a dry place.
 

Message #937 left by Rigel on Dec 9, 1999 at 17:25

Regarding the penetrating of armour with arrows.

About 10 or 12 years ago, I saw an amazing documentary on the U.S. PBS station, which came from England. It was two hours long and was detailed research regarding armour. It turns out that the thickest part was the helmet, at 3mm. Non-joint pieces averaged 2mm and the pieces at the joints were an average of 1mm. The knights wore chainmail under their plate so that
when they were penetrated, the point would hopefully not prick them. It was this researcher's assertion that the plate armour was only worn as anti-missile protection, because he found plenty of suits which had been cleaved through by swords. The metal was too thin to stop swords and maces. He also noted that the archers did have a specific armour-piercing arrow
head which could get more of its point through the plate.
 

Message #938 left by Andrew Dennis on Dec 9, 1999 at 17:27

Rigel, a modern bow, yes you can do these things. It's shorter than a longbow, and has a lighter pull - about half to two thirds. A short (hunting) bow can be fired from all manner of positions, and has to be if you're going to stalk deer with it. The longbow is a weapon of war pure and simple, and it just isn't effective unless you use it the way your entire skeleton and musculature have been trained to.

Likewise with the formation point; musket drill can be done literally shoulder-to-shoulder, since the whole operation prior to taking aim is done with the gun stood on its butt end between your legs. All the movements are done with the hands in front of the chest.

Line up a couple of hundred archers shoulder to shoulder and ask them to fire off fifteen rounds rapid (Yes, John, I know that's an anachronism) and they're going to be in each others' way constantly - they're handling ammunition that's three and a half to four feet longer than a musket ball, for one thing.

So you pull your arrow out of your quiver by your waist - chances are you just snagged the guy to your right. Then you tilt the bow a little to nock an arrow, knocking into the guy on your left. Finally, you draw back, sticking your right elbow into the left ear of the guy to your right. The whole formation has to shake out a little just to give the guys the room to work. I suppose if they all slowed down they could work closer together, but why bother? The rate of shooting is why they're there.
 

Message #939 left by Mary on Dec 9, 1999 at 17:58

Thanks, all!

Since this is a PSEUDO-medieval setting, I may do some mucking around (applying Niven's Law: any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology) to prevent these problems from arising, but now I know what sort of mucking around to do.

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(Note from Terry, Keeper of the Writers' Stash:  I spell-checked this before posting it, to avoid outraged cries from my fellow writers, but you should know that you don't have to have perfect spelling/grammar/punctuation to join the fray at the Rumor Mill.)
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