What is "Warbow"

[D. Tiller]

Yep! Seen that too. But those tend to be flat on the belly. Maybe they should be called flat belly bows FBB for short. English style round bellies, or English Belly Bows, EBB's for short? 

Seriously though, there is an american flat bow that is based on the English Longbow design but the belly is flat instead of rounded. The round belly and overall length seem to determin an English Warbow.

I really feal that we should not discriminate against people who are unable to buy Yew staves or simmilar ash or elm staves to build a warbow or unable to pull those high weights.  If we are aiming for replicating a historical bow and what it was about thats great and the more power to you. But many of us here are here to enjoy shooting a bow of simmilar design but not high draw weights. We can still learn from these bows too since they teach us the skill necessary to build these bows and shoot them. I bet ya that not all bows built for the common man back in the medeival ages were more than 80#'s draw weight since these would have been made for the common man who stayed on the farm. Childrens bows would have to be made also which pulled less in weight and increased in weight untill they were older in age and could pull a 100#'s or more, or not. Also, hunting bows would have been made on the same basic design but lower in weight. I dont think a cook would like to accept a rabbit or other critter after its been shot with a blunt from a 130# bow. Seems a bit like overkill to me. Overly tenderized rabbit! Or rabbit chunks! MMMM! Its whats for dinner!!! 

David T

[sagitarius boemoru]

Ratty - are you that person who tried to impress me on english warbow forum with "english bows meeting their match against composite bows on crusades  blabble"? (And eventuelly pissed me off enough to leave?)

Anyway - its nice you have posted that picture of arrowehads, but an arrow is only drawn to where the shaft ends (meets the socket of arrowhead). You dont pull it over the socket because it ultimatelly damages the bow much. Also I cannot see how an english arrow head could have 4´´ long paralel socket, which would lenghten 28´´ arrowshaft to drawable 32´´.
Think before you post anything.

There is no need to look for complicated definition of english warbow , the style is quite distinctive of itself.

This is preciselly where I didnt wanted to moderate this thread - wars of mices and frogs.

We know how the bow shall look like, it does not require special definitions. My intention was to prevent deteroriation of the topics ultimatelly to the point where a bow with handle appears and its maker will call it "warbow".

(As on known internet site which sells redoak flatbows with linen backings as "beautifull english warbows from 25#-40#".


Jaro

[sagitarius boemoru]

  If we are aiming for replicating a historical bow and what it was about thats great and the more power to you. But many of us here are here to enjoy shooting a bow of simmilar design but not high draw weights. We can still learn from these bows too since they teach us the skill necessary to build these bows and shoot them.

1. In which case rename it on longbows forum or whatever
2. Then its not a warbow, technically it does not belong to here
3. How so? How can you learn to make warbows by not making them

Its not discrimination. Warbow is a specialist item. By admiting that, you are not discriminating others. There is a whole other forum dedicated to all sorts of "non warbows" bows.

I really hate, when somebody who does not even occupate himself with the thing enters the discussion and starts to post things he read in first Osprey book he could put hands on or worse on some of popular internet sites.

Things like "Longbow was machinegun of its age"   - which they just take without thinking whatever the paralel really fits or why a british actor writing a book on longbow uses such a paraphrase. Or for change thinking about usage of machine gun (which is quite capable of aimed fire at individual targets.)

We should be criticall. We should admit that once dealing with a special field like e.g. science, everybodys voice just dont have the same weight.
This is not elitism in bad sense of the word.
Its normal.
A person which never shot a warbow, which didnt ever smithed bodkin or fired it upon hard target is ultimatelly less qualified than say Simon Stanley.

To "hear everybodys voice" is internet (e.g.wikipedia) dissease.

It hurts reall work or the research.


(But again nothing againts person which comes to educate himself- that is alright) .

Jaro

[SimonUK]

One of the good things about the old warbow forum was all the discussion of historical information. You don't have to be a warbow shooter to contribute in that way.

Second point - where should the aspiring warbow shooters go to learn bowmaking and shooting skills? Do we just practice on our own until we achieve the magic 90 lb mark and then join the forum?

[sagitarius boemoru]

If you read carefully what I wrote you find out I didnt wrote no such thing.

There is nothing wrong with asking how to do that or discuss historical fact, but not the way we see it too often and which already started here. Its interesting that people who actually do something do not have the habit to slip into this form.

Discussing historical facts is not sloganeering of popular bonmots.


Jaro

[MattE]

I am no autrority on war bows but I have read many books on the subject.One thing that I find is rarely mentioned is how short the people were in the days of the long bow, around 5' 4" was considered a large man. A bow tillered for a 32" draw, which seems to be the norm, would have been impossible for the average man of the day to reach if he were to draw the bow . I am 6'-1 1/2" tall and I can barely reach 32" draw pulling to my ear. I have come to the conclusion that bows of the day were tillered to 32" for safety ,while in reality the bows were only drawn to around 26" to 28" max. If we were to make a bow to fit us and use ratio to proportion  as a pattern. The bow would have to be tillered to 38" to 40" to be correct. There are other factors that come into play as well, things like reaching the point of diminishing returns and the bows averaging 72" in length.After doing the math it appears that the bows of the day were only pulled to about 65# draw on an average if that and not 90 to 100# as we have seen in print...... This is only an opinion! 

[sagitarius boemoru]

I am no autrority on war bows but I have read many books on the subject.One thing that I find is rarely mentioned is how short the people were in the days of the long bow, around 5' 4" was considered a large man. A bow tillered for a 32" draw, which seems to be the norm, would have been impossible for the average man of the day to reach if he were to draw the bow . I am 6'-1 1/2" tall and I can barely reach 32" draw pulling to my ear. I have come to the conclusion that bows of the day were tillered to 32" for safety ,while in reality the bows were only drawn to around 26" to 28" max. If we were to make a bow to fit us and use ratio to proportion  as a pattern. The bow would have to be tillered to 38" to 40" to be correct. There are other factors that come into play as well, things like reaching the point of diminishing returns and the bows averaging 72" in length.After doing the math it appears that the bows of the day were only pulled to about 65# draw on an average if that and not 90 to 100# as we have seen in print...... This is only an opinion! 

One thing that I find is rarely mentioned is how short the people were in the days of the long bow, around 5' 4" was considered a large man.

- Not true. "People were shorter than us, back in medieval ages" its known and debunked misinformation. Average height oscilated alot over periods of good and bad nutritions e.g. even over a so short time as two or three generations. A free farmer with his heavy work, but good nutrition on both sacharide and protein was actually very well build and of todays "normal" height with off course some people being shorter and some higher. People had slightly different frame - e.g. the palms of hands were more than narrow, but generally "they were smaller than us" is hersay.

I am 6'-1 1/2" tall and I can barely reach 32" draw pulling to my ear

- I m only 5´3´´ and I can draw 31´´ unless I get too much of body compression with bow over 115# or so. You do something wrong.


I have come to the conclusion that bows of the day were tillered to 32" for safety ,while in reality the bows were only drawn to around 26" to 28" max

- Such  bows would be extremelly sluggish. While there are some shorter arrows, these still allow for at least 28´´, but fully tilered english bow works indeed best at some 32´´. It starts to shoot reasonably at 30´´.  26´´ draw is just too short to store energy for these arrows. At 28´´ these bows just dont perform any satisfactory or in unity with a common performance they were required to reach.


There are other factors that come into play as well, things like reaching the point of diminishing returns and the bows averaging 72" in length

- Point of dimnishing return is reached at some 33´´ of drawlenght with english bows from yew. Past that you wont get much increase in distance reached.
MR bows averaged on 75-77´´. There is few (les then 10) which are actually shorter , but even these were in 74´´ range. 72´´ was probably standart in pre azincourt era, though we have no means to say for sure and again even 72´´ is easy to tiler at 32´´. For very heavy bows longer is better because the elastic limits of material is reached.

After doing the math it appears that the bows of the day were only pulled to about 65# draw on an average if that and not 90 to 100# as we have seen in print

-What math? Bad one apparently.  I follow right away with side note on required performance of said bows.

J.

[sagitarius boemoru]

Side note  on required performance..Read this before posting nonsense.

There is very much cited law by Henry VIII. which is by some longbowmen interpreted wrongly as one which does indeed prohibits shooting the targets closer than 240 yards or sets this distance as common practice distance.

In fact the law says something like this :
"Item that no man during a required practice shoot any flighting or prickling arrow at marks shorter than 240 yards."

(Cited from memory, original printed accurate in Hugh Soars "Of Bowmen and Battles")

As we can see the law only prohibits shooting TOO LIGHT arrows at closer targets and its intended to preserve shooting of heavy military standart arrows and bows of necessary weight and performance. It does not mean that shorter marks than 240 yrds werent shot, but an arrow between 3-4 oz was required for them, where longer could be shot with lighter 2 oz "flight" arrow.
The law is to prevent sporterisation of equipment.


Now to adress previous posts. A bow tilered for safety to 32´´/100# and then drawn at 65#/26´´ not even is sluggish and incapable of shooting 3 oz arrow at the edge of 240 yrds, but its not capable of shooting even light 2 oz arrow at that distance.
A dedicated military professional would fare even better!
The treshold is exactly where it is -

90#/32´´ with good cast will do 240+ with standart (2 oz) arrow or 200 with 3 oz
110#/32´´ with normal cast will do around the same

I would by this discard the idea of shortdrawing and what we could read in previous post as nonsense.

In post azincourt era even better performance is required as plate armour is in play, some arrowheads are quite huge and bows around 125# seem to be the standart.

80#/28´´ bow is not capable of performance required by law even amongst commonfolk, much less military men and its only a warbow to todays people who arent able to do better and want romatic.

(Side note on snipers - a accuracy specialist such as "Black Will long" leader of dean forresters would indeed shoot a bow on low edge of the weight spectrum, but even he would be smirked upon if he wasnt able to reach a commonners standart of distance and I would expect such person to baby his bow rather lot.

J.

[MattE]

Jaro, you have managed to discredit every bit of what I think may be correct. I realize you and some other, as well as myself, enjoy the history of bows but we all have to step back and take a long hard look at what the romance is and what is factual.It is documented fact that people were shorter in the fourteenth century and even up to the seventeenth century, contrary to what you stated.One only has to visit any museum and look at the armor worn in those days.I have seen actual clothes of the period and if  didn't know better I would have thought it was made for a adolescent. People were mostly short.I like to keep things in context. What we would like things to be and what they actually are sometimes conflict. The heaviest bow at my draw that I could ever shoot decent was 80# and only for very few shots.I don't believe in supermen. There are none now and there wern't any during the days of the long bow. Very few men today can pull the weight bows that you would have us believe all archers shot in the days of the longbow. The romance and the facts just arn't the same. I also don't think the knights of the day faught fire breathing dragons!

[Loki]

, but an arrow is only drawn to where the shaft ends (meets the socket of arrowhead). You dont pull it over the socket because it ultimatelly damages the bow much.

I like to keep my arrows the same length so i cut the shaft accordingly to fit the head,When i'm using a type 7 needle bodkin i still draw it back to the same place as when i'm using a type 1 head.My draw is 31" and my arrows are 32",i dont wear any type of glove on my bowhand and i havent found drawing over the socket  to cause any damage to my bow,which has no arrow plate.
What type of damage does doing this with type 7's do to the Bow?

[sagitarius boemoru]

Loki
Scratch and abrasion where forged metal runs over yew.  There is quite a bow in england with silver penny glued over the scratched channel of the arrowpass.
Nevertheless, the post above implied that you can magically lenghten the drawlenght through drawing over the socket from some 28´´ to  32´´, which off course its not the case.
I didnt saw your bow and arrow, unless you post a picture how does the section looks like at full draw, we wont get anywhere.
On other hand I dont understand why somebody would cut the shafts too short (26´´-28)  and then tried to lenghten them by means of arrowhead socket  when oposite approach is better - having actually the shafts slightly overlenght gives better launch in case of unspinned military arrows.



MattE
"It is documented fact that people were shorter in the fourteenth century and even up to the seventeenth century, contrary to what you stated."

- no its a well known widespread misinformation. There is alot of oscilation in average height which corelates with some population dimnishing events, like black death or famines, but generally they were only slightly shorter than we and that even comparing with relativelly recent increase of average height. Depends on demographic chose of the sample. Yeomanry class was actually one of better grown people.

 I can ask a friend of mine (shes genetic scientist)  about the height of men in demographic area of longbowmen recruitment, if there is any record, but do expect average at least 177-8 cm. Average in 15. century over here does appear to be only slightly less than now. What we can read from complains of Ascham (or bischop Latimere) is actually that through famine and change of agriculture the overall physical fitness along with average height decreased in 16. century exactly corelating with decline of military use of heavy bow and its considered one of crucial factors.

"The heaviest bow at my draw that I could ever shoot decent was 80# and only for very few shots.I don't believe in supermen. There are none now and there wern't any during the days of the long bow. Very few men today can pull the weight bows that you would have us believe all archers shot in the days of the longbow."

- Well the fact that you cannot do that doesnt mean others cannot. You either are just weak as modern men are, or you dont have any grasp of proper technique for this kind of bows. They werent supermen, but they were required and were used to much higher physical strain daily than anybody today is used to. Every simple thing which makes your life simple and easy they did not have. If you wanted  water, you have to get a wooden bucket go to the well, crank other bucket, carry yours back to the house etc... today you can acomplish all this by one simple move of hand.

They were tough as nails and they were required to get a bow and two arrows at age of 6 and start to practice by law.


J.

[Loki]

Loki
Scratch and abrasion where forged metal runs over yew.

Ahhh,my bows not made from Yew (one day...) and now you mention it the arrow strike area of my bow is covered in dents  ,but will this cause significant damage?
I like my dents,show's it's a well used Bow  .
Just measured this arrow and it sneaks in at 32.7" with a type 1 head,i need to get my draw back that extra inch!

[D. Tiller]

  I really hate, when somebody who does not even occupate himself with the thing enters the discussion and starts to post things he read in first Osprey book he could put hands on or worse on some of popular internet sites.

Things like "Longbow was machinegun of its age"   - which they just take without thinking whatever the paralel really fits or why a british actor writing a book on longbow uses such a paraphrase. Or for change thinking about usage of machine gun (which is quite capable of aimed fire at individual targets.)

We should be criticall. We should admit that once dealing with a special field like e.g. science, everybodys voice just dont have the same weight.
This is not elitism in bad sense of the word.
Its normal.
A person which never shot a warbow, which didnt ever smithed bodkin or fired it upon hard target is ultimatelly less qualified than say Simon Stanley.

To "hear everybodys voice" is internet (e.g.wikipedia) dissease.

It hurts reall work or the research.


(But again nothing againts person which comes to educate himself- that is alright) .

Jaro

First of all Jaro you have no idea who the people are here on this board or what their background is. Many of the people here have been building bows and studying them for many years and have a load of background doing so. Second you have no idea what our backgrounds are and what type of reading we have done.  So please keep your opinions of others to yourself! All of us here have come to talk and discuss this fascinating subject and learn how to make these bows with out being insulted or belittled. Some have no experience and would like to find out more about warbows and bows in general in a pollite, civilized and friendly environment. In the end you may have done some research and building of these bows but that does not make you an expert or the most knowledgable person on them. You may actually learn something from the others who participate on this site. I know I have!

[ratty]

Ratty - are you that person who tried to impress me on english warbow forum with "english bows meeting their match against composite bows on crusades  blabble"? (And eventuelly pissed me off enough to leave?)

Anyway - its nice you have posted that picture of arrowehads, but an arrow is only drawn to where the shaft ends (meets the socket of arrowhead). You dont pull it over the socket because it ultimatelly damages the bow much. Also I cannot see how an english arrow head could have 4´´ long paralel socket, which would lenghten 28´´ arrowshaft to drawable 32´´.
Think before you post anything.



Jaro

wow jaro WHY are you so rude? .and insist you are always right in the face of your own uncertain evidence?

all is speculation by you, and me,

and please stop insulting people.


ps. i do not believe you are the leading authority on the English warbow.

until this is proven i shall keep an open mind to what is correct and what isnt.

I know many bowyers with different opinions as to equipment found on the MR , but the main difference between you and them, is they can talk and discuss without insulting and forcing there opinions on eachother.


pps. im not posting this to start a fight. its my opinion and i think quite a few other people here.

[Dane]

Yikes, a war is brewing here? I do hope not. PA is an awesome forum of kindred spirits, and I hope that spirit continues everywhere on the boards.

It seems to me there is a religion of sorts of true believers within the warbow subculture.

It also seems to me that to appreciate any kind of historic artifact, you have to understand as much as you can about the culture it came out of. In the case of medieval England, the driving force for most if not all of society's classes was Christianity in a time when Paganism was not far gone. The manorial system, the church, the free classes and those bound in service to the manorial system were one small facet of that world, and it is a world we can't possibly really put ourselves into, as much as we might try. We can only gaze through many centuries for glimmers.

And last, a war bow is a military weapon, and having been a soldier would help one understand the role of the common foot soldier a bit, no matter what period or culture he lived in. Not necessary to have fun with any style of bow, but a bit more to add to the appreciation of it all (and glimpse the horror of warfare, too).