>From what I've read of the Mongols, this isn't completely accurate. The
Mongols used a wide range of arows, including lighter arrows for
long-range firing, whistling arrows, grenade arrows (tipped with
gunpowder) and three-foot armor-piercing arrows. Pentans probably don't
have this variety, of course, since they lack access to metal.
Pam Carlson wrote:
> But keep in mind that the Mongols used their bows mostly at short range
> - 30 to 50 meters. THey would ride up, shoot, and ride off.
That sounds like the mangudai, which was their favorite trick -- riding
off to draw the enemy into ambush. There's lots of evidence of long-range
firing in other circumstances, including siege and harassment: not
unsurprising, since the bow had a 350 yard range. ('Course, power
and accuracy would suffer at long range.) Mongols had a pretty good siege
train, too.
Steve wrote:
> I think most historians would agree that the advantage the Mongols had was
> in their generalship, their strategic mobility, and their aggressiveness -
> not dominant bowmanship.
These were much more important, but light horse archers have throughout
history had a fine time indeed smashing up heavy foot and horse.
> Anyway I wasn't discussing whose bows were effective, I was discussing
> DOMINANCE on the order of that exhibited by English (Welsh) Longbowmen, who
> psychologically transfixed military thought for several centuries. This
> hasn't been seen in Glorantha, not that they don't have effective archers,
> just none that have been DOMINANT in that way.>
Considering the damage that light horse archers inflicted on Byzantine,
Chinese, Russian and East European armies,
But the importance of the longbow has, IMO, been overstated -- thanks in part to its adoption as part of British national myth and identity last century (and to many Amerian Robin Hood movies). The longbow was gradually rejected in favor of the crossbow, after all, since it was much more expensive and time consuming to train a bowman.
Sadly, while raving about the Mongol parallels with the Pentians, Sandy Petersen squashed the notion that Pentians are that advanced. Ah, well, Genghis Sheng may arrive yet some day... ;)
Sorry, you hit my "Mongol Fan" button...
James Frusetta
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