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A Legacy Written in Fire and Blood (ASOIAF SI)

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XkaliburRage said:
Question, will the SI ever try and learn new tricks from Dothraki archers etc. when he gets exiled to do something like this?
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NO. God no. Why the fuck would you want to? That is not a useful skill in combat or hunting, which you know, are the whole reasons you learn archery in a medieval setting.

Do you want to know why that is dumb? It has to do with a little thing called kinetic energy. You see, you have to put enough kinetic energy into the arrow to actually hurt what you are aiming at. In combat, that means you need to be able to put arrows downrange with sufficient force to potentially pierce mail, badly forged plates (well forged ones are near impossible to pierce), and padded armors.

With a horsebow, it is going to have a draw weight in excess of the minimum 70-80ish pounds necessary for a short warbow, more likely around 100, and an infantry longbow will be 100+ on the low end. This is because battlefield arrows are heavy compared to the lighter ones used for hunting or target shooting, and you need more energy to move more mass the same distance. (The additional arrow mass is needed for piercing armor)

But draw weight isn't enough, you also have to draw the bow back to a sufficiently long draw distance to transfer that kinetic force. Speed shooters are using low end draw weights, oftentimes in the 50ish range, and don't draw the bow to full draw or even to 80% or so draw when they shoot.

It is all flashy and cool, but underneath it all it is worthless.
 
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XkaliburRage said:
Didn't the guy still pierce chainmail?
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Yes, from extremely close range, with modern arrows, which are not the proper relative weight or size. Riveted chainmail is not a particularly good armor type against arrows. Period soldiers would wear thick padding under chainmail, which provides additional protection (padded armor is probably superior to maile in most respects against arrows anyway).

If a soldier was that close and charging, putting an arrow through his chainmail isn't going to save you unless you pierce his heart, throat, or head. He's mere moments away with a spear or sword. That arrow will hit, and he'll keep right on coming and gut you. Arrows, contrary to hollywood and general knowledge, are almost never instantly lethal weapons.

The period references to such archery talents are few and far between at best, and are not particularly reliable sources. Unlike our sources that speak to the efficacy of armor against arrows, as well as the types of arrows and the strength of bow needed to effectively combat armor.

Simply put, the video as a demonstration of a kind of interesting skill is fine. As a demonstration that it was useful and practical talent in period-accurate combat... no.
 
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thebrute7 said:
This is because battlefield arrows are heavy compared to the lighter ones used for hunting or target shooting, and you need more energy to move more mass the same distance. (The additional arrow mass is needed for piercing armor)
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Not only is additional mass needed (which is why iron or heavy wooden bolts were preferred for crossbows) but a special tip is required to help pierce plate and padding.
that tip is the

Bodkin Point (preferably the one on the right). with the mass of the arrow being concentrated on that tiny point you're sure to pierce into at least a lower medium quality plate. plus medieval archers wherent about accuracy but about quantity so with that and the reasons above it is clear why scores of longbowmen were used up until the early black powder weapon days.
 
If you're looking for kill ratios of archers vs. other types of weapons in legitimate war scenarios, there are some really good statistics out of Japan during the period leading up to the formation of the shogunate.

WRT draw weight, it varied a lot. Peasant-levy archers from, say, continental Europe would typically be using the standard hunting shortbows (40-60 lbs). English Longbowmen would range from 80-180+ lbs, and were required by law to train weekly. Longbowmen used a "punching" type motion, where instead of drawing the string, they would push the bow (somtimes both at the same time for even faster firing). Horse archers, eg, Mongols, would also be in the heavy war-bow range too, and used a laminate recurve construction that was extremely effective, allowing both high pull weight and long draw distances (as well as a very quick relaxation, which effects maximum range), but had significant issues in prolonged wet due to the type of glue; these are similar to Korean bows. The Mongols were actually primarily horse archers. Japanese archery is interesting as it was largely the samurai who were the professional archers; in fact, until the Tokugawa shogunate, archery (especially mounted archery), not swordsmanship, was seen as the pinnacle of the samurai arts. Sufficiently skilled practitioners of japanese mounted archery receive semi-automatic knighthoods in the Imperial Japanese Court even today. Any of these levels of "war" archery require consistent training from a young age, hence why they tended to be practiced by warrior cultures (Mongols), knights (Japan, Korea), and in England came about due to universal training from childhood to be able to provide an effective militia.

On the topic of rate of fire, English Longbowmen firing to standard could shoot at a maximum of 12 times in a minute, though rarely exceeded 6 to prevent exhaustion and conserve arrows. This is for the general, practice weekly types. Veterans of the hundred years war were expected to exceed this, and true "master archers" could likely double it. If using a lighter bow than they might otherwise (eg, someone able to use 160 lbs uses 120 lbs) they might even achieve rates of fire similar to those shown in that video (where the real art is not how fast he draws and fires, but how quickly he nocks the arrows).

The real limitation to rate of fire was conservation of ammunition. Longbowmen for example would go into battle with a load of 60-72 arrows, and as arrows are fairly bulky, resupply was limited. One of the reasons the British tended to fight defensively in the 100 years war (unless at a siege) is that the carts with the resupply arrows could not follow an advancing army into battle.
 
aguy said:
If you're looking for kill ratios of archers vs. other types of weapons in legitimate war scenarios, there are some really good statistics out of Japan during the period leading up to the formation of the shogunate.
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The role of Bows and Arrows in a society whose armor is primarily lacquered light scale/leather designed for easy of mobility and not serious protection is basically irrelevant when compared to Westerosi armor.
 
You'd be surprised: layered and laminate materials, especially ones with some give so that they increase the deceleration time, are much more effective on a weight-weight basis than things like steel. It's because of crack mechanics. Once the arrow penetrates even a little into the armor, the steel is much less resilient. Further, during the Sengoku period, plate armor had made it's way to Japan, and was incorporated into the style.

Lastly, it's mostly an issue of numbers. In Westeros, like western Europe, most soldiers, including professional guardsmen, do not have full plate, and even full plate and heavy shields are only effective at extreme ranges against war-bows.
 
Here are a couple of very good videos on the topic. Most of my own research comes out of books on the topic I own, but these bring up most of the points I was trying to make.

Military Archery and Speed Shooting

English Longbows vs Late-medieval Plate Armor.
 
zamin said:
I have no idea what those are, but I want to see it happen anyway.
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Chu ko nus are automatic crossbows complete with ammo magazines, and thus are objectively the best thing in existence.

The main problem of the design should be obvious, which is that they're basically the SMG/machine pistol to the crossbow's rifle. Their range and armor penetration is far less, which compromises much of what made the crossbow such a fearsome weapon in a first place. Still, they were decent enough to see a service history starting from at least 4th century BC all the way up to the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95.
 
Considering the fact that the drawstring is so short that there's no way the bow could be straightened to the point you'd normally expect, that a just a stupid fantasy crossbow. The draw would probably be fairly low for a crossbow, honestly.

But we're getting rather off the topic of the actual story at this point.
 
Dark Abstraction said:
Considering the fact that the drawstring is so short that there's no way the bow could be straightened to the point you'd normally expect, that a just a stupid fantasy crossbow. The draw would probably be fairly low for a crossbow, honestly.

But we're getting rather off the topic of the actual story at this point.
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no we arent, we are discussing the merits of long range medieval warfare which would be intrinsic to a book series like a song of ice and fire as well as to the story at hand.

also bows during that period were the preferred weapon of ship to ship combat.
 
I don't think either of you actual understand what I meant. Discussing bows and crossbows isn't that off-topic. Discussing random pictures of fantasy crossbows from video games is.
 
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