Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting What draw weight to launch an arrow 200 yards.

I shoot traditional bows. I’ve come to think that there is some serious exaggeration about the effectiveness of bows.

First, let’s go to medieval long bows. For the most part, they could not penetrate plate armor at any distance. If you go on YouTube Todd’s workshop has done some of the best testing ever on that and pretty much proved that plate was invulnerable except in certain spots at very close range.

I personally have come to believe that the volleys of arrows one imagines and sees on film, didn’t happen. If you look at sources and paintings, most archers are shown shooting at close range. I personally think that English archers were placed on the wings like they were at Agincourt and used to funnel the enemy towards the center and the English men at arms who fought on foot. Then at very close range, the archers were able to pour in arrows on the enemy who were engaged with the English men at arms. As such, the English archers could hit gaps and weak spots in the armor to great effect. At a hundred yards or more 99 arrows out of a hundred will do no damage whatsoever to a man in plate and are wasted. At ten or fifteen yards, an archer can snap shoot and hit that same man of arms under the armpit while he has a pole arm raised to engage the English knights.

I think there was a bit more standardization than we realize today with arrows being mass produced to spine for bows of the 130 to 160 pound class.

As for Indians, I have no doubt they were capable of incredible feats with their bows. That said, in nearly every instance when Indians could obtain firearms, they abandoned the bow even for hunting. And we’re not talking about repeating Winchesters. We’re talking about smoothbore trade muskets.

I’ll also add that the earliest settlers in Jamestown started fighting the Indians they asked for armor and the like. The armories in the Tower sent them all kinds of breastplates, mail, and helmets dating back to the Wars of the Roses and beyond that was no longer useful in Europe but useful against Indians. They also sent several hundred longbows. Those were not accepted by the colonists but stored in Bermuda or Jamaica for fear that the Indians would see the English longbows and thus, improve their own bow technology.