That seems a long way - but I am no judge of distances! How far could a longbow arrow fly, still retaining enough power to hurt someone badly? Could an arrow take down a horse?
Thank you! I can see how (given a large enough body of archers) they'd be enormously useful for a force trying to hold a position against an oncoming force (unless the oncoming force were infantry with a Roman tortoise-shield defence). Do you think they'd have enough accuracy to still be useful when battle was joined? (I do know who won at Crecy, and that the longbows get a lot of the credit! I'm just trying to visualise why.)
The standard for being allowed into a medieval archery company, apparently, was being able to hit an oyster shell at a hundred paces (call it 63 yards). If you could do that, you'd stand a good chance of being able to hit the joints of plate armour at the same range - or the visor of the helmet, of course, and arrows could usually break through even a good visor.
As for the tortoise, that only really worked with the scutum, which of course was rectangular. A typical medieval shield was too small and the wrong shape; there would be gaps between shields that the archers would simply shoot into. In any case a shield would probably start to break up after half a dozen hits.
At both Crecy and Agincourt the archers fought hand to hand as well as with their bows. They were more agile than men in armour and tended to carry sledgehammers, axes and daggers. It all got rather nasty.
:) Yes, I knew the tortoise wasn't used in these battles! I was just musing on things that could have been. and will now be able to muse with good solid background data - thank you very much!
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How far could a longbow arrow fly, still retaining enough power to hurt someone badly?
Could an arrow take down a horse?
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Do you think they'd have enough accuracy to still be useful when battle was joined? (I do know who won at Crecy, and that the longbows get a lot of the credit! I'm just trying to visualise why.)
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As for the tortoise, that only really worked with the scutum, which of course was rectangular. A typical medieval shield was too small and the wrong shape; there would be gaps between shields that the archers would simply shoot into. In any case a shield would probably start to break up after half a dozen hits.
At both Crecy and Agincourt the archers fought hand to hand as well as with their bows. They were more agile than men in armour and tended to carry sledgehammers, axes and daggers. It all got rather nasty.
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and will now be able to muse with good solid background data - thank you very much!
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