Also, the commonly-guessed theory that longbowmen used 140 lb bows was based on one (1) example -- the bows found on the Mary Rose, which had been soaking at the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years. Since NO extant bowstrings from the middle ages survive, it is, in fact, debated whether or not the bows of the time were really 140 lbs. We've been rather blithely tossing off the 100-lb dogma of the medieval bow based on one (1) article full of guesswork. That's it, folks. No one really knows what the pull-strength of medieval bows was, either long or composite, and there's only been one guess, which has then been widely quoted everywhere.
So Joerg, who thinks that bows punched right through armr, can go to hell.
I said:
> In all medieval literature, we don't have a single narrative
> source saying that a person was killed by an arrow piercing his
> armor, chain _or_ plate.
Joerg, missing the point, says:
> at Hastings the Hirdmen of Harold Godwinsson were felled by the
>dozens by arrows fired in a high arc initiating William's
>(desperate) last attack.
I repeats. No Contemporary Narrative Source Says An Arrow Pierced A Target's Armor, Chain Or Plate. . The Hirdmen of Harold were wearing armor, but the source doesn't mention if the arrows were piercing their armor. It goes at length into Harold's death, but the arrow didn't pierce his armor.
Literally HUNDREDS of knights' deaths are described in various manuscripts, yet never ever does an arrow go through armor to kill him.
Joerg:
> but once the chivalry had learned not to charge into massed archers
>in a defensive position, their losses to them were reduced
>considerably.
Joerg, I'm feeling crabby today, so you'll have to take my insults with a grain of salt, knowing that I actually have the highest respect for you. BUT, don't you know anything about military history. The description you just gave of the use of longbows is utterly at variance with the facts.
The knights killed at Agincourt were charging a vastly superior English force behind a palisade of wooden spikes. (Yes, I know the French outnumbered the English, but the French _knights_, who are the only ones that charged, were hugely outnumbered by the English infantry, also bolstered by dismounted knights.) It was the palisade and massed infantry that killed and stopped the knights (once more, after the archers disrupted the charge), not the arrows. Then, after the longbowmen drove off the French crossbowmen (demonstrating the longbow's ability to compete with the crossbow), the archers picked up hand-to-hand weapons and charged the rest of the French.
2) Crecy 1346, one of the first battles of the Hundred Years War. Agincourt 1415, one of the last battles of the Hundred Years War. You said something about the chivalry "learning" not to charge? Nothing was learned, because there was nothing to learn.
I said:
> Longbows weren't used for long - they came into prominence
> around 1300, and by the Wars of the Roses (1450) were pretty much
> defunct.
>>Wrong. They didn't dominate battles any more. The British army had
>>archer contingents with better accuracy and rate of fire than any
>>musket unit. The drawback was that noone could afford to muster
>>large numbers of these, but as specialist units they survived
>>longer than you want to make us think.
Joerg, you need to read more about the period. The British longbowmen only ever "dominated" two (2) battles, though they figured prominently in others. The English army ('twas not British yet, and wouldn't be for some time) had fine archer contingents, but the archers were Not Able To Penetrate Plate Armor. That is one of the reasons for the proliferation of handguns (not muskets, yet -- they didn't come along for another century or two), and it is repeatedly pointed out by contemporary speakers. They go on and on about how guns could penetrate armor, thus destroying knighthood. This type of argument was _not_ used vs. longbows (though it was, with crossbows).
"No one could afford to muster them?" They cost less than gunners! The bow was provided by the warrior, as was the skill and training. Handguns cost a fortune. A unit of handgunners cost MORE (both to train and equip) than a unit of archers. The problem was that people had stopped using the bows, even for hunting.
Joerg says they were still used by "specialist units". Joerg, in 1453, Edward IV could not fill his required contingent of 20,000 archers. In 1456, all other sports were proscribed in England, in a failed attempt to get enough longbowmen. There was a move to return to the longbow during the 16th C, in fact some really long discourses written in support of it, but they essentially came of naught. The longbow was dead. Why? Some historians claim that this was simply because no one could fire one anymore. And there is much truth to this. But also true is the fact that the invincibility of the longbow was just as Claude Gaier says "une mythe tenace".
Finally, you claim that people learned how to deal with archers. They didn't need to, they'd known since Alexandrian times. The way to deal with archers is to charge into them. In the many battles in which longbowmen were beaten, this is how it was done. You seem to have the idea that charging longbowmen was a bad idea. It was at Agincourt, where you only had a few hundred knights charging Henry's whole force behind a palisade. But normally it was quite efficient, such as at the battle of Nevill's Cross, in which the Scots frustrated the English archers at the beginning of the battle, after which the archers played little further role, though the English eventually won because their footmen held off the Scottish charges.
Joerg, despite my respect for you, I must be blunt. You don't know what you're talking about. Have you read Delbruck? Dupuys? Froissart? Evidently not. I'll be happy to take up this topic off-line.
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