What is "Warbow"

[sagitarius boemoru]

To be picky, Occam said: "dont introduce unnesesary inputs into the equation", which is what we call today principle of logicall parsimony.

The part of Adams bow I have in my collection has general dimensions of basebal bat and contains 60 percent of sapwood. It cannot be in any seriousnes compared to MR bows. Sapwood is far more elastic than heartwood, and that makes beam which is not enough stiff and more profile is needed to build up the weight. The thing is bloody two inches wide.

Anyway I m not quite catching up why is everybody talking so much about rpi, because that is SECONDARY pointer to yew wood density. 30 rpi grown in park and in mountains is whole different quality of wood. Aside of SG another factors like wood consistency are to be looked upon, I was said by best english bowmaker today that it needs to be "fat" and curl under scraper.  And as sidenote a wood from male plant is reddish in collor, harder than comparable from female plant and it does make more lively bow.


Neverthelles bows made from high altitude alpine yew made to MR dimensions come out in 110# +, modern replicas by Celestino are made mostly in longest range of MR spread (because they are again sold to generally amateur public) (means 80-82´´) and they come as heavy. If you cut such a  bow 4´´ to get proper lenght you get 20# or more of drawweight and these are in median or lower MR girth dimensions. Go figure.

The longevity factor is what I call pure bull---t, these bows are not flight shooting specials, they are made to be reliable, nobody goes to war with weapon which lasts only for 600 shots as armament of main battle array .  People who have them do not notice drastic reduction in cast or breakage or much of string follow after severall thousand shots, so its contrary to what we are being so vehemently told.

Why we have worse wood today than them should be quite obvious - yew has become basically unaccessible to generall public, numbers of high altitude grown yew bowstaves availble go in tens, while by 1500´ it still was in ten´s thousand´s, even if we take in consideration the bemoaning of wood buyers about selling bad wood bundled with good in sheaves alike. This itself would allow for much better sellection of wood we can even dream of.

J.

[alanesq]

On the subject of what draw weight the bows would have been, just thought I would pass on my experiences so far of taking up the warbow:
I am reasonably large built but I work in I.T. and have never done any job or hobby which involves a lot of heavy work lifting etc.
I took up archery around 1 year ago but up until January I was shooting a 65lb bow (28" draw)
I do not do any training other than shooting my bows once or twice a week
Around 1 month ago I bought a new bow which is 130lbs at 32", it was VERY heavy for me and I didn't know if I would ever manage to fully draw it but now after only a few weeks I can shoot this bow surprisingly comfortably and it gets easier every time I use it    (I have checked the draw weight and it has not dropped yet - I wondered if this was why myself ;-)
The point I wanted to make is that if I can pull 130lbs after a few months of not very intensive use of warbows I find it difficult to imagine that professional archers who had been shooting these bows since boyhood would be shooting bows much lighter than mine ??

Just thought I should confess;

Yesterday I managed to find someone with a set of calibrated weights to let me use them to calibrate my bow scales
I can now measure the weight of my bows with confidence that my scales are spot on and it turns out my bow was 120lbs (not 130)
so I am not as butch as I thought ;-)

so let this be a lesson to you, never get your scales calibrated ;-)

[SimonUK]

120 lbs is still quite butch Alan.

Can I ask a slightly unrelated question... When measuring draw length, should it be from the back of the bow or the belly? I usually measure mine from the belly.

[alanesq]

Hello,

Thanks, its good to know I have not lost too much respected in the warbow community because of it ;-)

As I understand it, it should be measured from the back of the bow (i.e. far side)

BTW - I attach my rope to the bow string via a large carabina so really its like drawing the bow with one finger, so I don't know if this is correct or if you should have something wider to simulate the 3 finger draw ?

[SimonUK]

I don't think that would make much of a difference Alan... maybe 1/2 cm or so. There is probably more variability than that when you draw the bow by hand a few times.

[Rod]

120 lbs is still quite butch Alan.

Can I ask a slightly unrelated question... When measuring draw length, should it be from the back of the bow or the belly? I usually measure mine from the belly.

You measure draw length from the back of the bow because that is generally accepted as the limit of your draw, the arrow ferrule or barb coming at most to the back of the bow.

But you can measure it from anywhere you like, if you want to....  :-)

I generally measure tiller from the belly to the string of the braced bow, likewise brace height.
But not draw length.

Rod.

[alanesq]

Just thought someone out there may be interested in this:

I have been pondering a lot on why there were 28" arrow shafts (and all manner of different length shafts for that matter) on the Mary Rose
I was interested in the idea that all the arrows were drawn to the same length and the points varied in length so decided the best plan is to give it a try for myself.
i.e. all arrows were the same total length and the arrows were all drawn tot he same distance from the pointy bit ;-)

so I have made myself a set of arrows which are based on what I know about the Mary Rose arrows and I am now using these as my main roving arrows



these shafts range from 28" to 31" but all arrows are drawn to 32"
all the cones are very similar in size
The longest point is a needle bodkin with total length 5.5"   (kindly donated by John Marshall)

I cant claim to have used the arrows enough to really report back on how well the perform but I can confirm they shoot ok and drawing the bodkins well onto my hand doesnt damage my hand or the bow

[Rod]

For the purpose of this forum, warbow should be a single stave english style full bend bow of at least 90# or/and 220 yrds with Standart arrow.
Backed yew is acceptable as there are 16. and 17. examples of backing yew for bows, but not exotics and multilam bows.

Call me snobbish, but either its the thing or it is not.


J.

OK, then you're snobbish.  :-)

In the early period of military use it is likely that against the lightly protected and maille, a heavy hunting bow might have been quite effective. Draw weights will have increased in line with the necessity to project a heavy shaft further in the face of opposition as well as to keep pace with developments in protection.

If you want to put a very specific date "ante quem" on the English warbow then perhaps you can be so exclusive about draw weights.

Rod.

[sagitarius boemoru]

Hahaha,that is your words actually.
Anyway - Hugh Soar mentions early 14. century archery militia in his book and in the account there is considerable variation when it comes to bows the lads brought with them.
Howewer, should any type of army be deployed as sucessively as english did, logistic structure must be established and part of that is supply of bows and arrows.
By 1340´ this already all seem to have been place, so "standartisation" of bows and arrows in terms of what crown buys and what not must have again be in the place.
Otherwise the development in terms of power progressed as the arms race went with at least two leaps. One at the point when this structure was established and I would suspect that is also time when hornnocks were universaly adopted and the other by 1400´when plate armour was more acessible to some.
I would also think that the bow itself wont seen much development past 1450´, though the arrow seem to have gotten more engeneering when anatomy prohibited further increase of drawweight. Also by 1450´italian armour got infanterised - which means the best protective garment became availble to professionall footsoldier and these are arrowproof to large extent.

There are tresholds at which the rig is or is not effective against certain types of armour. I would assume, in order to actually be winning, the english at least attempted to keep overall quality of both bows and arrows better than said treshold.
One does seem to be somewhere around 90# the other is around 125-130.



Jaro

[Rod]

I thought that would get handed back... :-)
By the timer that the warbow becomes developed, Selby's figures for the Chinese bow are pretty much spot on, and the response that this is not relevant because they are composite bows is bushwah.

A serious warbow in any culture where defensive and offensive gear is well developed, the task is pretty much the same and so are the draw weights. The task ALWAYS defines the draw weight parameters.
What is interesting with the chinese gear is that although Selby gives a fair amount of information on draw weights, the information on arrow weights is rather thin, and one example translates to only abot 400 grains, which is more in target shaft country than that of a shaft meant to give a "great stripe".

I must get hold of Mr.Selby and see if he has more on Chinese war shaft weights.

Nonetheless, anyone interested in accuracy shoulod consider well the Chnises criteria for qualifying as a first class military archer, be it infantry or cavalry bows.

It bears repeating that the median for cavalry bows is in the 90lb to 120lb range, that for  infantry bows in the 120lb to 150lb range.
That these figures refer to composite bows has no bearing as an objection since draw weight is draw weight regardless and the task remains the same, near enough not to matter.
Seven layers of cuir bouillee is doubtless not so easy to penetrate when compared to plate of the lower qualities and however you look at it, there will always have been enough folks on the field without the most expensive gear even in the late 15thC.

BTW Jaro, have you noticed that one at least of the Viking bows in the Proceedings appears to be side nocked?

I agree with you about yew density. Mick James has a Boyton made of English yew, one that Chris made as a "crude" warbow with artfully raised wood around many pins, high enough to take your eye out, something of a masterclass in making an artform out of raised pins.

This bow is admirable "posing tackle", just the thing for Mick since it looks very "big" and draws only 65lb. I handled it recently and did not believe that it was  65lb until I weighed it.
It's of quite close ringed English yew, but if I hasd opicked it up blindfold I would have thought it overbuilt osage.

It was uncomfortablly heavy in the hand and I would have taken an oath that it only drew 45lb or so.
I did not have the opportunity to put it through the chronograph, but it put me in mind of a Bickerstaffe in osage that a chap has brought to Sherwood on a couple of occasions.
Both these bows pull with deceptive ease, being very elastic, both weight far more in the hand than any yew bow of mine, and my 56lb pieced yew clout bow is far more crisp to pull and probaby outshoots either by a considerable margin.

This just shows that density is not everything... I would get tired just holding either of these bows at arms length for any period of time.
It was amusing to see the owener of the osage bow shoot either of my yew bows, he was surpised both by the lightness of the bow and also by the crispness of the draw and the resulting cast.


When time allows I intend to get profiles of Mick's bows and add then to those already in my Photobucket collection.

You will find my 20lb Aldred Lancewood bow on there now, which is a good example of the narrow "peaked" belly style of sporting bow in a tropical heartwood, sooften mistaken in the past by those who know no better as the "proper2 longbow sectioin
This bow was in good original condition except that the horn nocks were missing and FRF was good enough to fit authentic replacement nocks.
The only draw back is that I will not risk shooting it, out of respect for it's age and almost perfect condition.
True it only has a monetary value of around £40, but it is virtually ireplaceable as an example of it's type and I would be gutted if it broke.

Nice ash bow BTW. And I thought you had said that ash would not make a warbow?  :-)
Certainly you would not bother if you had some yew to play with, but it is a perfectly acceptable substitute if you have nothing else and know how to make it.
Rod.

[Rod]

Just thought someone out there may be interested in this:

I have been pondering a lot on why there were 28" arrow shafts (and all manner of different length shafts for that matter) on the Mary Rose

This is something that comes up from time to time. Part of the problem is that in later literature much is made of the "clothyard" arrow, but without considering that the typical clothyard was not as long as the current imperial yard...

Also average heights for adult males were somewhat less than in tyhe present day, though not as low as the minimum reached in the Victorian era.
In the 13th & 14thC the average male height in England was about 5' 7 1/2" which naturally would have produced a shorter draw length.

Being 6' 4" with arms, according to my tailor, like an orang outang, my easy corner of the mouth draw is almost 30", and I can long draw over 36" before I reach the limit of my extension and have to rotate my elbow down below the line through the arrow.
In short (no slur intended), Jaro's long draw is about the same as my corner of the mouth draw.

So it is not surprising to find shafts in the 28" ballpark.

Rod.