fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (02/10/90)
From: fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) [mod. note: This was crossposted from rec.arts.movies to sci.military. Followups are directed to the latter; please ensure they are suitable for that group, or change the Newsgroups: line accordingly. - Bill ] In article <13082@cbnewsd.ATT.COM>, hhm@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (herschel.h.mayo) writes: > In article <139700044@iuvax>, hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu writes: > > > > According to John Keegan in "The Face of Battle", the battle of Agincourt > > was a mob scene with most of the French casualties coming from the initial > > waves falling in the mud and being trampled to death by succeeding waves. > > The attack was canalized by the forested areas on either side of the muddy > > field where the battle occurred. The "arrow" cloud unleashed by the > > English longbows were not lethal at long range against armored soldiers -- > > the arrows were more of an irritant. > > > Stand at one end of a football field. Have about 100+ archers start > plugging away at you with 100pound pull bows with steel tipped arrows. > decide for yourself how irritating they are. Keegan notwithstanding, > this sounds like more revisionism. The English longbow excelled at > killing at long range, and punching through armor. Plenty of modern > examples of this bow have been made and tested. They are devastating. > They had the striking power of the crossbow, coupled with a far higher > rate of fire. Its reputation was built on far more battles than Agincourt. Some have concluded that the French (and the Genoese mercenary crossbowmen who fought with them) were idiots to go up against the longbow. One reason that the longbow wasn't used (sucessfully) outside the cool, damp north of Europe was that in warmer, drier climates, the longbow began to fail as its wood dried out too much. One of the most successful condottiere was an Englishman (Hawkwood?) who brought some of his lads south with him. They initially used longbows, but as the winter and spring gave way to summer, they found that the bows became an absolute liability. At the same time, crossbows were equally useless in wet climates. They were made by laminating several different materials, and the glues used began to fail if they stayed wet for too long. The cross bow (as well as various other composite bows) were pretty sophisticated in design and construction, using different materials for various parts of the bow, depending on whether the component was in tension or compression. The glues, for that matter, took a long time develop. The best was generally conceded to be one made from the skin from the inside of the mouth of sturgeon, for instance. ------------ "...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..." Plato, _Phaedrus_