How many arrows can an expert archer fire in a round?

[GreyLord]

I do archery. Most of those jokers wouldn't qualify. Probably because half of their bows don't have the poundage to penetrate a piece of paper, much less a body...much less through any sort of armor.

It's very easy to pull back and shoot a 5 pound bow 50 times in a second (those guys are VERY slow when you look at that type of poundage actually) but then, you won't kill anything with that type of poundage.

You want at least 40 to 60 pounds of pull to injure, and with many of the bows, you probably have a heavier pull as the heavier the pull, normally the more power you have with the arrow, and more range as well.

 

[Wicht]

I don't get your point. He's firing actual arrows, with enough force to kill someone with each shot, at different targets, while moving, while the targets are moving. They explain it's based on what appears to have been standardized soldier training in ancient times.

I like archery and practice myself with longbows. I have to wonder about the truth of the bolded part of your assertion. Don't get me wrong, I actually find his technique quite impressive and would like to see a better illustration of how he does it. I think we have actually forgotten quite a lot about archery and he certainly demonstrated we have quite a bit we could relearn.

But I would also like to know what the pull of his typical bow is. It didn't look like a very strong pull to me and the penetration he achieved on most of his shots did not overly impress me. I would be surprised if he had more than a 30-35 lb. pull on that bow and he wasn't drawing full. Now, when he gets the same technique going with 45-50+ lbs of pull on a bow, I'll be even more impressed and concede he is going to be lethal. And when he does it with a 60-80 lb. pull I'll concede he's as good as the ancient bowmen.

 

[Celebrim]

I am not really suggesting archers should get 12 arrows in a round. I am just saying it's noteworthy to discover it can be done, accurately, with killing speed, in combat-like situations. So that when some day we have discussions about high level archers getting too many shots to be "realistic", we can recall this guy and how it can be a reality.

Well, I'm not sure I've ever had that discussion about high level archers getting too many shots.

I will say that the technique he's using appears to have some limitations. First of all, it's not clear that its particular accurate beyond about 1 range increment. He's usually using it at what is point blank range - 30' or less - and he's aiming at targets about 10-12 inches across. Some of the other archers techniques are slower, but seem designed to hit a much finer target a similar range. His technique is perfectly fine for simulating shooting enemies at close range, but the sort of accuracy he's showing here is much less useful for hitting a target at say 50 paces. Secondly, this is a short bow technique only. I wouldn't think you can do what he's doing with a high draw longbow. In D&D terms, he's probably also not adding his strength bonus to the shots.

I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with a feat tree that maximized rate of fire for a specialized short bow archer up to reasonably high level at the cost of increasing accuracy penalties.

 

[Mistwell]

My point was that a game with that many attacks per round doesn't sound like a great idea to me, whatever method of attack it is. Lots of watching someone roll dice for 20 minutes.

Rather than attacks per round, that sort of thing is best abstracted a little to use area of attack rules, I think.

Ah, well then we agree. I don't want them making that many attacks per round either. I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my initial post

 

[Mistwell]

I do archery. Most of those jokers wouldn't qualify.

The video involves some of the top archers on the planet.

You calling them jokers tells me, in the very least, you didn't recognize the people in the video. Which tells me...you probably are not in a position to be calling other archers jokers.

 

[Wicht]

The video involves some of the top archers on the planet.

Eh, you sure about that.

No offense to your intimate knowledge of archery, but I'm pretty sure that those "top archers" represented in the video are speed archers he got off of Youtube (well two of them are speed archers anyway). Of them, I believe only the first, Lajos Kassai, has anything like real international recognition as, iirc, one of the men trying to help revitalize the mongolian archery heritage. The second, Iza, is an impressive speed archer with pretty good youtube/internet penetration, but her accuracy is not all that great (she can hit a bed-sheet from 20 paces!), her bow is fairly light-weight, and I am not aware of anything else she has done outside of her single youtube video. That's right, she's apparently a 1-hit youtube wonder. The other two, "Dasdaan" and "Bo" are just, so far as I can tell, some guys on Youtube and their rate of fire is not really all that impressive. I can do that well, if not better myself and I'm pretty sure I don't rank among the "top archers on the planet".

 

[GreyLord]

The video involves some of the top archers on the planet.

You calling them jokers tells me, in the very least, you didn't recognize the people in the video. Which tells me...you probably are not in a position to be calling other archers jokers.

Is that so...hehe...really.

Funny, I haven't seen most of them at the tournaments winning any medals then.

Sure, they do fine with academics, but when accuracy, range, and power are on the line......

Speed with a low poundage bow is one thing...and yes, anyone can do it with a low enough poundage. As I stated, looking at those, they may even be slow if someone is using a 5 lb bow (with a 5 lb, if I have a good enough line up with the arrows I could probably beat 12 arrows a minute...of course those arrows aren't going to kill anything...or at least probably be just as ineffective as a bbgun...meaning sure, you might hurt something, but probably not to any lethal degree on a normal person), but with archery there's a LOT more than speed.

Their technique is NOT what the medieval bowmen utilized in Europe from what I understand. It IS possible for the medieval bowman to have shot rather quickly also, but in a different manner. Sometimes it was a rain of arrows that didn't have a much aiming (shooting over a wall for instance), as it was mass of the number of arrows simply raining down. One can also shoot faster, even with a heavy pull, if you don't have to aim.

The shooting they are demonstrating probably would have been more effective from horseback...and they may also be accurate in their depictions. It would NOT surprise me that the depictions in the videos are EXACTLY what were utilized by the middle eastern archers during the middle ages and even the Renaissance.

However, when you read the engagements between those archers and European forces...you realize the middle eastern archers were HIGHLY ineffective overall against an armored opponent. The texts talk about knights that looked more like pincushions with hundreds of arrows sticking out of them. Same with military men which only had heavy leather or chain. In some circles, looking at the European archery, that would seem like made up fairy tales. Looking at what may possibly be done with the middle eastern archers...perhaps there IS some truth to it.

IF the pull of their bows were as light as the videos indicate, AND they were not even using the full strength of the pull in order to go for speed (I still doubt that, as the sacrifice of poundage in order to shoot faster seems rather counter intuitive), then I suppose those tales may not even be exaggerations, but dead on truth.

But in modern day archery...range, power, and penetration sort of count...

You still HAVE archers that shoot very rapidly WITH full poundage and full draw without having to resort to tricks like you see in those videos.

 

[Mistwell]

Is that so...hehe...really.

Funny, I haven't seen most of them at the tournaments winning any medals then.

None of them are in North America. You can find most on Wikipedia though.

Their technique is NOT what the medieval bowmen utilized in Europe from what I understand.

It's not intended to depict medieval western Europe, as far as I know. I believe it's supposed to be more Middle Eastern, some Eastern Europe, and some Northern Europe, as well as some tribal methods.

The shooting they are demonstrating probably would have been more effective from horseback

One of the archers depicted in the video is one of the top horseback archers. I believe he is Hungarian.

...and they may also be accurate in their depictions. It would NOT surprise me that the depictions in the videos are EXACTLY what were utilized by the middle eastern archers during the middle ages and even the Renaissance.

However, when you read the engagements between those archers and European forces...you realize the middle eastern archers were HIGHLY ineffective overall against an armored opponent. The texts talk about knights that looked more like pincushions with hundreds of arrows sticking out of them. Same with military men which only had heavy leather or chain. In some circles, looking at the European archery, that would seem like made up fairy tales. Looking at what may possibly be done with the middle eastern archers...perhaps there IS some truth to it.

IF the pull of their bows were as light as the videos indicate, AND they were not even using the full strength of the pull in order to go for speed (I still doubt that, as the sacrifice of poundage in order to shoot faster seems rather counter intuitive), then I suppose those tales may not even be exaggerations, but dead on truth.

Could be!

You still HAVE archers that shoot very rapidly WITH full poundage and full draw without having to resort to tricks like you see in those videos.

Not sure it's a "trick" as opposed to simply a different style.

 

[delericho]

Others have mentioned the poundage of the bow.

He's also not in anything resembling a combat situation - a quiet room with a completely flat floor, and where the targets, crucially, don't shoot back.

Besides, the biggest problem with upping the rate of fire with bows is not one of realism (since high-level Fighters are superhuman anyway), but rather game balance - the longbow is already overpowered in just about every edition of the game.

 

[Wicht]

None of them are in North America. You can find most on Wikipedia though.

Links?