[merged] Archery: the films have it wrong

[TarionzCousin]

I won't be impressed until he runs up an elephant and kills it singlehandedly.

 

[Celtavian]

Well, I guess that proves a shortbow archer can easily fire a ton of arrows quickly. Still not sold a longbow archer could pull this off.

 

[transtemporal]

Break the wrist, walk away!

 

[Hriston]

Puts more credence into 1e rate of fire.

 

[Raith5]

Puts more credence into 1e rate of fire.

And the 4e Ranger's twin strike and disruptive strike!

 

[Plaguescarred]

Whoa that was impressive!

 

[Morrus]

We have three threads about this video, so I'll merge them!

 

[Ryujin]

Yes. He's using a 35lb test bow similar to what a girl scout or boy scout would use. And he doesn't even draw back the bow fully to his chin, but pulls it about 3/4 of the way.

I'd guess about 80 feet per second, or less than half the speed you'd expect with a hunting or war bow. Hense the ability to perform the tricks.

So, as far as myths go...

1) It is true that back quivers are ahistorical for Europe. They are not ahistorical for North America, Africa, or Japan - and it's not like Japan didn't have refined archery arts. It's likely that Hollywood got the notion that quivers were worn on the back because the most recent USA experience with real archers was in the Native American wars. It's really weird don't you think how he can discipline his body in every way EXCEPT to keep his posture upright enough to keep his arrows in a quiver. Native American and African hunters managed just fine.
2) While it is true that the Hun archery techniques that he's most fascinated with were lost as a result of a political situation, it's not generally true that all ancient archery was lost just because 'gunpowder'. Afterall, archery was widespread in many areas into the 19th century, and is still practiced in some areas today.
3) It's not true in general that ancient archers were highly mobile warriors. Horse archers, sure, but we aren't talking about horse archery. Those same pictures showing features like holding arrows in your bow or draw hand, also often show those same archers with arrows arranged around their feet. The vast majority of archers fought in semi-static positions, sometimes accompanied with a shield bearer to defend them. Skirmishing with a bow would have a variety of disadvantages and light skirmishers tend to disappear overtime anyway, probably because they aren't that effective against disciplined troops.
4) He's not actually that accurate. The target archers he disparages shoot at penny sized targets at 20 yards and missing by more than about a quarter's distance is considered a bad shot. At 60 yards, they shoot at 9cm targets. At equivalent ranges he hits somewhere on a dinner plate and somewhere on a 2x1m target, most of the time. Most of his shots are from 8 yard or so away, if that. And the hitting moving targets isn't that impressive either. The top trick shooters routinely shoot penny sized targets that are falling, and they've been doing it in front of live audiences for years. Since he's only doing it on a video, we don't know how much Jackie Chan magic is involved here. He's clearly highly skilled, but we don't know how many takes were required to produce the perfect shots. He starts touring and doing this for live audiences for a few years, and then I'll believe.
5) The sort of rate of fire he's using has only limited battle field utility - mostly I would think if you were on a horse and riding by a formation of infantry. But as infantry, your burst rate of fire is far less important than your sustained rate of fire. Assuming you are drawing a 75lb to 110lb bow, firing a shot every half second - even if it were possible - would leave you exhausted in short order. Archers fired about every 10 seconds not just to get good aim and make sure their shot counted, but because firing faster is equivalent to sprinting in terms of exertion you are doing. If you are trying to fire only every 6-10 seconds anyway, a lot of his economy of motion is wasted.

All that said, until he came along, the top Hun archery recreationists were firing with arrows in the bow hand on the left side of the bow at about 1/3rd the rate he fires. At the time, it was generally believed that a lot of the historical descriptions of rate of fire were purely legendary. Now, any halfway decent kid copying his techniques and practicing for a few weeks can recreate tricks that were believed by experts to be impossible just a few years ago. He deserves a lot of credit for training and reinventing a lot of techniques no one was really paying attention to.

All very excellent points. The one that is most telling, to me, is that he's not drawing a horsebow in the manner that is so common to the type; OVERdraw. It's quite historically common for horsebows to be drawn back to the ear, or beyond.

I make my points about the questionable utility of this method, against an armoured opponent, below.

(As I'm a left handed archer I'm going to have to mentally swap sides, so please bear with me in case I make an error) When shooting off the fingers or with a release of some sort, it's generally a good idea to rest the arrow on the left side. This is because the nock will kick slightly left on release, as the string rolls off the fingers. A horsebow is more often used with a thumb ring as the release, which would tend to make the nock kick to the right on release. For this reason it's common to place the arrow on the right side. It's about making the arrow fly straight, compensating for the fact that the bow is effectively in the way. It's not got a whole lot to do with this guy's "miraculous discovery" as people have been doing this for centuries, and still do to this day.

I've been seeing videos of this guy for maybe a little over a year. I own a bow with similar construction (mine is a Mongol pattern horsebow that draws about 45#, whereas his looks like a Hungarian style horsebow of indeterminate weight). Drawing and releasing that quickly, on my bow, would have me sent off to a hospital in short order for various torn up muscles and tendons. His achievements are far from trivial, but are made so by the overblown claims.

someone should make a subclass based on this dude

You mean "every half decent 3.5/Pathfinder archer build"

Rapid Shot, Many Shot, Point Blank Master....... It's all about making a character shoot like this guy.

And he puts them through chain armour, so yeah, I'm impressed.

Don't be. We don't know if he's only 10 feet away, barely out of shot. We don't know how his arrows are tipped. We don't know if the gambeson under the chain is realistic in construction (a gambeson can be quite good at stopping arrows, by itself). And, to top it off, we don't know what the chain is made out of and if the chain mail is riveted links, welded links, or simply butted links that you could twist open with your bare hands.

 

[Celebrim]

I make my points about the questionable utility of this method, against an armoured opponent, below.

We can't know what he's shooting at, but it really doesn't matter. Longbows with 110lb draws have been extensively tested against real armor. The basic result of that test is that an average longbow would have penetrated light armor well, but would have been largely stopped by heavier armor. Knowing that and mentally comparing the velocity on his shots to the sort of velocity you'd except from an arrow, it's pretty clear to me that there is no way he's going to penetrate realistic armor at any range to any significant degree. Getting 3/4" penetration on some non-fight quality twisted coat hangers and a thin unhardened leather cloth is pretty much meaningless. It's like kids that think "leather armor" means a kid skin jacket.

His achievements are far from trivial, but are made so by the overblown claims.

I'm not an experienced archer so I can't critique his technique. My knowledge is mostly "I'm a DM so I got to know this stuff", and "I've fired bows and crossbows a few times, and played lots of paintball (where velocities are comparable to archery)." He's at his best when he's saying things like, "Historical archers claimed they could do X, and they probably could." Had he stuck to a more academic discussion of his craft, I'd have nothing but good to say about him. Instead he has this whole crazy shtick. Byron Ferguson has a bit of a shtick too, but Ferguson has been doing this for decades and needs to self-promote because its what he does for a living. So far, this is just some guy on the internet.

 

[Rune]

Puts more credence into 1e rate of fire.

I don't understand. 1e used minute-long rounds. Every single archer from 3e on has had a better rate of fire, even without extra attacks.