>The best estimate for the lethality of archers comes from the church
>penalty for killing or wounding a christian enemy - I forgot the exact
>numbers, but if a hand to hand kill amounts to 1 year of penance, then an
>archer taking down an enemy gets one month of penance.
I'm not sure how to translate that into actual effectiveness and it may be biased by the view that the bow was a peasant's weapon which could kill a noble. Certainly with volleys of archery the chances of actually killing someone are low, most of the casualties will be disabling wounds. Which may of course get infected and kill eventually.
>> There's also the question of whether Orlanthi archers are trained
>> for this. I've always thought of Orlanthi archers as primarily
>> huntsmen who use their bows in a skirmish role. Nor do I see there
>> being enough of them to create effective volleys.
>
>Personally, I don't see the wisdom in shooting in volleys after the first,
>unless you are standing in very tight ranks. When the enemy is not so
>obliging to shoot in regular volleys, you have to keep your shield up all
>the time or risk receiving a stray shot.
Assuming the enemy are capable of returning fire. Archers were often a minority in ancient or medieval armies. I understand that in the Wars of the Roses where both sides had longbowmen the casualties were very high. They didn't have shields and the idea was to inflict enough casualties to get them to run away before they did that to you.
>> Then there's the matter of ammunition. If a hundred archers fire
>> thirty arrows each in a few minutes that's a wagon load of arrows
>> to be made and transported to WW. I can see the Lunars having
>> trouble moving the volume and they have a proper supply organisation.
>
>Every archer is supposed to make or repair his own arrows, but of course
>you need prepared shafts. An arrow is a significant investment of time and
>resources, and the typical after action activity of archers (once the loot
>has been secured) is to collect arrows from the battlefield. Of course, if
>you want an accuracy, you had best use your own arrows. Shooting an arrow
>that is too soft or too hard results in interesting curves of flight (e.g.
>thirty yards straight, then a sharp turn to the left or the right), and
>there is only so much fletching can do to remove that effect.
You can't collect arrows when you are in a seige. I'm not to sure how many you would collect after a battle either. The demonstrator I saw lost a fair proportion of his arrows in an open field because he wasn't watching where they fell and the target area was easily big enough to lose them in. You are certainly not going to get your own arrows back although I imagine there'd be a fair amount of checking to find the most suitable ones for your use. As you say there's a lot of labour involved in preparing for that few minutes of fire. Makes rocks and sundry missiles a far more cost effective option.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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