Why is the English longbow considered a good bow design?

Just to add on to a already lengthy post, (I'm sorry I can shut up after this)

Recalling from memory,

A few years back they found a sunken boat in the Thames river that had over 200 bows and several of them wrapped in wax/fat and furs keeping them preserved in the water. Some in such condition that historians thought they could still be used if strung.

By measurements they calculated that most English bows typically held between 80 pound draws all the way to 120-up-to-185 and even some 200+ pound draw.

At the time, the kinetic force of being hit by that by a skilled archer is just.... mind-blowing.

>(I'm sorry I can shut up after this)
as a long time lurker, thank you for your posts,
please don't shut up, knowledgeable and in depth posts are more and more rare here

>long time lurker
Dude I remember the original Galaxy thread.

shrewbows.com
javamanarchery.com

I have bows from both of these bowyer shops. I grew up under Ron LaClairs tutelage when it comes to archery. (He is well known to most traditional archery communities, alongside Howard Hill, Fred Bear, William Tell.)

Any more sick bow facts? One of the craziest things I've seen on the topic is the analysis of skeletons from the time clearly showing who was a longbowman because of the massive strain.

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It is considered a good design by anglos. Actually it is a shitty parody of real recurve composite bow

"Good" in this context is quite relative. Laminate- and composite war bows of the time would fall to pieces in cold humidity of north-east Europe. There's a reason for such designs being developed only in the middle of Eurasian continent.

primitivepathways.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=264
This is mine, though when I bought mine they were $200 cheaper. After word got out they got popular and price went up

>real recurve composite
>spontaneously delaminates when it rains
>i i i its a feature, guise! rilly rilly!
my sides

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Europeans made laminated crossbow prods though, they just enclosed them in leather.

>required daily training from an early age, so much that archers can be identified from bone structure.
>ak 47

Kinda thinking you're wrong there user

I know. Sometimes birch bark was used instead of rawhide and Finnic peoples in northern Russia made hand bows similar to that well to the 1800's.
The thing is that they were light, mainly hunting weapons and didn't need to be able to take nearly that much mechanic stress so they could be "glued" together with stuff like birch bark resin. Glue that was both physically strong enough for

IMHO if they had higher IQs they would have figured out compound bows like the Mongols.

Short horn bows wouldn't have been as effective as a longbow when deployed in large foot formations against armored opponents though. The Mongols had a genius solution, but it wasn't without it's drawbacks

Mongol bows matched with mongol horses. (also, recurve not compound)
They would ride right at their targets and release relatively close.
The long bow was fired from a few hundred yards away from men on foot.
When you compare missile tech world wide during this time frame, the longbow holds it's own.
It was a bit of a brute strength approach but nothing else could deliver the power at the speed and range the long bow was used.
Given the wood they were working with, I doubt it could have been made into a recurve longbow.

Simple and effective

Did not-long not-recurve bows just fucking suck?

Ask the Dakota tribes.

In it’s day and the places it was used in it was the assault rifle of bows, and it was so simple a peasant farmer could practice easily with it. Also muh Agincourt.
Mongol bows were devastating because they were used by Mongol horsemen on Mongol horses. Comparing a longbow to the bows the Mongols used is comparing apples to oranges.

All of East Europe, Middle East as well as China used recurve bows in large formations against armored opponents without trouble.

England was simply a shithole which couldn't produce them. Similar to Japan, which also opted for 2 meter longbows not because of superior samurai wushu, but simply because they didn't have enough resources to equip their armies with it.

It was the Glock of its time. Maybe Ruger. Cheap, plentiful, not the best but still plenty lethal, and everyone had one.

Yew has good properties for bowstaves. Most longbows are made by laminating together two or more types of wood to form the proper spring structure, but yew naturally grows that way.

With Yew bows you didn't need to laminate, which meant they held up better in the elements.

Responsible for a number of victories e.g. agincourt.
If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.

The reason england and all of europw didnt use composite bows is literally in this thread. You're just too dumb to read it.

>The reason england and all of europw

But that's bullshit, because a large portion of Europe did use recurves.
That's why English stroke their long wooden shafts so much. They're compensating for the inadequacy as a good portion of Europe was ahead of them.

Spain, back then an Islamic Caliphate used recurves out of the ass since that is the only thing Arabs ever equipped themselves with.

Italians and Greeks also used recurves since they got influenced by cultures using those long ago.

Slavs (which includes lots and lots of damp plaes, mind you) all used recurve bows both in formations and on horseback. They were continually in contact with Magyars, Scythians, Tatars, Mongolians and other cultures, all of which were in Europe and also used composite bows.

That's already 3/4ths of Europe's population and not a single shithole which used longbows.
I'll wholly admit I know fuck all about the equipment of medieval German states, but that leaves us with English, French and Scandis. And French were more into crossbows, IIRC.

>wet and rainy environs
>medieval composites
Ya, it's the glue dude. Asian composites would be an awful idea in Western Europe

Something to remember here is that it rains in the British Isles. A lot. It is a really shitty environment for medieval-grade glues. Which is why the yew selfbow was great. You could build a ton of staves out of a single tree that were as good as the composite bows built elsewhere, but were basically immune to the rain, especially with their oiled leather sheaths for travel carry.

It's not
It's a big and bulky and an inefficient design.
English archers were extremely well trained which compensated.

What did Slavs do to keep their bows from falling apart, then? And Huns, and Magyars, and Avars, and Mongols, and Finnish, and Scandis (just fact checked and yes, Scandis did use composites as well), people all over the fucking Siberia?

I'm not saying the idea you're presenting is rubbush. You're just missing a critical piece of information.
Like the fact that the English were simply incpable of storing said bows, didn't know of a resistant binding method or lacked access to the material which forms a better glue.

See

Or, you know, they had a native tree that made such techniques unnecessary.

And it's not the rain that dissolves it but the overall humidity and moisture and sea salt.

Eastern Europe and beyond is alot more dry. They also weren't having to deal with plate armor. Crossbows became largely prevalant in the west because they were capable of dealing with the heavier armors of the time (they were also much easier to train). Heavier arrows were required to penetrate increasingly heavy armor. In order to maintain the same range, you have to increase the weight of the limbs. Small, short recurves stored energy more efficiently but use smaller, lighter arrows than the English that were less suited to penetrating heavy armor

The various mongol affiliated tribes kept their bows in dry boxes beside the fire inside their tents.
When on the move they were wrapped in oiled leather and not used during bad weather.

There was no good reason for the English to not recurve their longbows. I mean this is ancient knowledge we’re talking here which would have made their longbows more efficient and given their arrows the same speed with less effort. Wood can be formed to make the recurves simply by passing the ends over fire.

Basically, the English were so dumb, they modded their own bodies to fire a bow, rather than modding a bow to fit their bodies. A sledgehammer approach to making a war bow rather than finesse.

>There was no good reason for the English to not recurve their longbows
Except that it was easier and had similar results in building selfbows to make them straight.

Have you done any wood bending?

>That's why English stroke their long wooden shafts so much. They're compensating for the inadequacy as a good portion of Europe was ahead of them.
this sounds 100% like the english desu and this is now my favourite theory

i'm the avatar motherfucker and you gotta deal with it

youtu.be/uQpdhWVBw-0?t=1044

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Pretty sure the report that started that whole longbowmen skeleton thing just said they could tell who used two handed weapons from one handed weapons by looking at differential skeletal thickness. It didn't even say they were definitely archers, just suggested it since the bodies belonged to archers and swordsmen. The report was also specifically about humerus cross sections and proposed repetitive stress from training during youth was the cause, not because the bow had some ridiculous draw weight.
Any labor intensive profession is going to have a slightly different skeleton due to wolff's law.

>The report was also specifically about humerus cross sections and proposed repetitive stress from training during youth was the cause, not because the bow had some ridiculous draw weight.
This, they can also recognize galley slaves, leather tanners and frequent horse riders from their bones.

Crossbows were composite yet England and Scottland had no trouble using them. What's with the double standard?

Size, and power as stated above. Scaling up size and power to 200lb draw weights the glues would fail.

The actual power needs to be evaluated based on both the weight and the length of the power stroke. The projectile can't be accelerated instantly. The length of time the projectile has with the force of the bow acting on it matters. That is why those monster windlass crossbows are still less crazy powerful (though lets be clear, they are indeed still damned powerful) than their ultra high draw weight numbers would imply, since the time the bolt is being accelerated is low. This is the only reason why I would think a longbow might have an advantage over a more advanced design. Unfortunately, I can't say for sure. We need someone to chrono some different bows to see for sure. That would be the easiest test, since you could just calculate the kinetic energy based on the velocity and mass of the projectile.

Also, as far as being weather proof, IIRC, the wet would affect the strings of all bows in general anyway, causing the bow to lose tension as the wet string stretches.

Crossbows had a hgher draw weight than longbows.

Yes, the ones made from steel.

Plus they had a draw length less than a half of a longbow.

Right, but you draw a crossbow typically using some type of tool, like a windlass or the Genoese belt-hung hooks that let them cock them by standing up.

But, limb length does matter for range and projectile size. A longer arrow is more stable over longer ranges. At Crecy, for instance, the French had their Genoese mercenary crossbowmen's pavises (Ground-planted heavy shields that easily deflected arrows) miles away in the back of the supply train. And lined them up inside the English longbows' range, but too far for the crossbows to be effective. So what was usually an effective way to force the enemy into crossbow range instead turned into a massacre of the Genoese.

Including the ones made from wood. This isn't rocket science. Europepan crossbows have short prods, they'll be useless if they had the same draw weight. Even the wekeast ones needed to be dran with the leg.

>you draw a crossbow typically using some type of tool, like a windlass or the Genoese belt-hung hooks that let them cock them by standing up.
Which has nothing to do with anything at all.

>200
>Decent longbow
You need to drop at least £600 and preferably closer to £800 for a decent self longbow.

Mounted lance/swordfighting required training damn near from birth and was practically the only thing they learned, whereas archers were part time militia.

>they'll be useless if they had the same draw weight.
No, they were useful in hunting and shooting unarmored human targets at close distance. And that's what they were used for before the heavy steel crossbows and arbalests came to be.

I guess I should have specified, I meant the cheap ones that are worth buying at all.

Longbows are the fucking katanas of Europe and I hate them because of it. Every TTRPG makes longbows fucking amazing and makes guns useless.

Different woods have different properties. I'm willing to bet if you do that with yew, it loses some of it's properties in some way. The English knew about recrurves, they experienced them on the crusades, so there must have been a good reason they didn't do it.
>inb4 hurer durr the brits are dumb

Good archers (traditional non-crossbow) also trained for years.

Pope attempts to bans the crossbow against Christians - 1139
Steel prods start appear - 14th century
The anglo denial is strong in this one

>Steel prods start appear - 14th century
No.

So, the skeleton thing, show that the remains of the English archers had longer arms from the contact strain and stretching of the muscles and tension. Usually seen in the arm used to pull back the string (typically the right arm) being more developed in muscular and skeletal structure.

Also found in the bones and muscles of the fingers used to hold the string.

Also historians theorize that the English archers had they been trained would have been excellent infantry-men with having the strength from having pulling back the bow in using Halberds and axes in melee. Archers who had money would usually carry a large heavy iron knife (similar to a medieval bowie) or cleaver knives, or a mid-length short sword similar to a Falchion.

They would also set up a series of 1-3 large wood stakes in front of them to protect the archers from calvary charges.

As another avid traditional archer (mixture of horn and long bows, though) I've always thought that the main point of the long bow was the simplicity. To create a horn bow you need more materials, you arguably need more skill and a hell of a lot more time. To create a bunch of long bows you just fell a tree and BAM several long bows. Exaggerating, of course, but it was much easier to produce in quantity than horn bows.

Well thats a part of the design of a longbow. the Englishmen could go find a tree, cut it down and from a section of would they could make up to 6-12 bows in case the bow they brought from home broke or needed replacement

>Critical difference in how a weapon is operated
>Nothing to do with anything

Well thats a part of the design of a longbow. the Englishmen could go find a tree, cut it down and from a section of wood they could make up to 6-12 bows in case the bow they brought from home broke or needed replacement

You can't just cut any tree down and use it like that. It takes a year to age and dry (season) the initial staves to where you can shape and tiller them. And for a proper English longbow Yew is the material of choice because it has the ideal density layering.

Never thought that the Picts had much access to horses, let alone horse archery. You thinking of the right group or can I get some sauce?

Roman occupation wars.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that composite bows tended to have a lot more trouble with getting wet and delaminating - which would have been an awful vulnerability for guys who have to make amphibious landings in France and march on foot through inclement weather in Nothern Europe for months on end. A composite Mongol bow may have been more compact and a little easier to use on horseback, but it wouldn't have survived very long in the Hundred Years' War.

Oh wait it WAS mentioned, my bad. Point still matters, the yew longbow was the best tech for the circumstances and eastern style bows wouldn't have done well

longbows were much more lethal than firearms during that era. firearms won out in england because they killed nearly all their archers in the war of the roses, and firearms didn't need a lifetime of training to be effective, they started the war with archers and pretty much ended it with muskets. the lethality of longbows as an individual weapon wasn't matched until rifled muskets which had comparable-to-somewhat-better accuracy (in realistic conditions with smoke-obsured battlefields) with about half the RoF of a longbow.

a highly mobile cavalry force like the mongols could live with the limitations of their bow since they could force or avoid combat at will, so they could fight in appropriate weather. that doesnt work as well with infantry in densely wooded terrain in a notoriously wet climate like england.

See

>Wax and Animal fat wrapped in leather.

I'd bring up that the Japanese yumi was similarly made from simple wood and used length to gain power instead of tensile/compression differences. There might be some kind of analogue here.

archer's spines have a particular twist from the asymmetric tension of the bow. also the first three fingers on their right hands have signs of pretty severe arthritis, but not the other fingers.

Though with an interesting difference in shaping that allowed it to be used from horseback even though very long.

Explain how you pull back the string has anything to do with how a crossbow can withstand weather better than a self bow. I'll be waiting.

The fuck are you on about?

Pros for longbows VS period ranged weaponry (composite bows and crossbows)
>Substantially higher RoF than crossbows
>Will not fall apart in rain like composite bows
>Similar footpounds exerted as crossbows on impact
>Better flight characteristics than crossbows
>Supposedly longer range than crossbows
>Less expensive than crossbows
>Multiple arrowhead types unlike crossbows
>Cheaper than crossbows and composite bows
>Easier to make than crossbows and composite bows

Cons:
>Crossbows are easier to train for use
>Supposedly worse flight characteristics/range/poundage than composite recurve
>Difficult to use longbow mounted unlike crossbows/composite recurve

Now one must consider the actual applications of the weapons. Longbows or other self bows were generally employed in mass archer formations, used in volley fire. There is some debate about whether the volleys were used in direct fire for maximum armor penetration value, or for parabolic, long range harassing fire, or both. However, this does not matter much for the purposes right now. These archers were ALSO generally trained to be competent infantrymen as well, using axes, swords, sledgehammers, and halberds. Due to their multipurpose and well drilled nature, it makes sense that their bow is a cheap a weapon as possible that also requires some degree of dedication and skill to use effectively.

Crossbows were often purchased generally by lords of castles for their defense or by mercenaries, with many exceptions of course. But broadly speaking, a crossbow is superior for defense of a castle to a bow due to not needing to reload standing, being able to hold a loaded weapon on target, and due to being able to shoot indefinitely with mechanical assistance to avoid exhaustion. For mercenaries, crossbows were generally the best ranged weapon that could be bought for the money while also requiring minimum training.

Composite recurve bows were used primarily by eastern horse cultures with climates far more dry than Europe, avoiding the bow's primary drawback of delaminating and falling apart in wet conditions. The bow was also used frequently as a weapon of horse archers, which is already a very niche application when considering the general order of most battles. For a horse archer, however, a bow of exceptional quality for use in skirmishing is what is desired, and if the archer already owns a horse, it stands to reason that he might already have the ability to preserve his weapon or have backups, should the bow be damaged by the elements. It is worth mentioning, too, that a composite recurve bow is more difficult to use than a large self bow due to less margin for error when drawing the bow.

Bullshit. By the time matchlocks were around, guns shot further, more accurately, and penetrated armor better. Their biggest disadvantage compared to longbows was reload speed, but even then it wins out over time as a longbowmen is going to get tired much faster.

To the point, the English longbow is considered to be a good bow design not because it is brilliantly engineered or due to some other quality metric, but rather because it has the highest return on investment in terms of effectiveness IF it is in the hands of a well drilled, multipurpose foot soldier, and this idea is the basis of medieval English warfare. The knights would often choose to fight dismounted in support of this infantry/archer hybrid rather than act as flanking cavalry due to the efficacy of this strategy.

Why are they called self bows anyway?

Going to dispel some myths ITT
>muh armor penetration
Bows are fuckawful at armor pen. Too light a projectile not moving nearly fast enough in a historical context. The longbow, even with the bodkin point, is incapable of penetration vs plate at even point blank ranges with direct fire.

This fictional bullshit about longbows penetrating armor needs to stop. It’s like the katana vs tank shit.

Bows do better vs mail or a jack or such but the longbow isn’t any better in this regard.

>muh rain
It rains a fuckton in Korea. Laminate bows were fine. Rains a fuckton in Hungary, laminate bows were fine. Even the English used laminate limbs on crossbows as did the French. All fine.

The longbow was cheap and simple, not some masterwork of engineering.

>muh draw weights!
The ottoman laminate recurve bows were routinely in the 120-160lb range. Mongol bows were similar and historical accounts exist giving 160lb estimates. The designs are similar enough that this is to be expected.

Meanwhile the average English yew longbow had a draw between 90-110. Even if you extrapolate that and cite a 160lb example, you can’t say they were more powerful than a recurve. In actuality the recurve limb design makes a 160lb recurve shoot faster than a 160lb standard limb bow design.

Myths and bullshit aside the longbow was effective because it was cheap to equip hordes of men with and they were required to train with them. NOT because it was some cutting edge bow design because in fact it’s super basic compared to its contemporaries and even predecessors.

because it is made out of a single piece of wood.

Because they're made entirely of a single piece of wood.

>>muh armor penetration

I wonder, have there been any experiments with 180+ lb longbow/recurve composite bows, using reinforced bodkin arrow heads with a tapered thick neck arrow against historically accurate breastplates?

All I've ever seen of these 'tests' are of very light longbows vs very late period (super thick) plate armor

I’m It has a roughly 60lb draw and Is 72” unstrung, flag for reference. It’s much more demanding to shoot, but equally more fun than modern bows

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Right, they can punch through plate, but, and especially in large enough volume, they can find:
Visor slits
Vents
Openings covered only in maille
Your mount

And other weak points they can slip through.

There are accounts of knights standing in full plate unaffected by the rain of arrows hitting them, but worrying about a lucky one getting through a vulnerable point.