I don't know about the "armor was almost all iron", I'll see if I can find any articles or research that might debunk that. About that, brief q: do you all think that plate armor was designed primarily to defend against arrows, or against edged weapons like swords? It certainly works well against the latter, as sword techniques of the time rely on getting the point in gaps of the armor, or using the weapon as an improvised club or leveraging device for grappling.
Anyway, before I get off topic on that,
Let me try this at another angle. Rapid loosing as a technique and not a quantity of arrows"per minute". As in, not the rate of discharge, but the speed at which the arrow is drawn and loosed.
It would be a waste of arrows to try to discharge as many as possible within a longer stretch of time, I think that's the consensus.
But would the arrow have more or less penetrating force depending on how long the archer held the arrow at full draw? I see a lot of videos of the long range shots, the archers take their time at full draw, or rotate the bow upwards after achieving full draw with the arrow point angled downward at first.
Does this improve the energy/speed of the arrow (and thus improving its range), or would holding it at full draw for that long make the arrow lose stored kinetic potential?
The bows the Byzantines used weren't warbows by a longshot (they used composite bows similar to those used by nomadic groups and other mediterranean and middle eastern cultures' they also used crossbows at this time, too but this passage refers to the former), but here is what the Strategikon says right away about training an individual soldier:
"He should be trained to shoot rapidly on foot, either in the Roman or Persian manner. Speed is important in shaking the arrow loose and discharging it with force. This is essential and should be practiced while mounted. In fact, even when the arrow is well aimed, firing slowly is useless."
("Maurice's Strategikon; translated by Geoge T. Dennis, pg. 11)
Now, do you think that his advice regarding rapid draw/loosing is completely unrelated to warbow archery centuries later? Or does Maurice have a point here?
At what point of time does aiming an arrow become counter productive to the speed at which the arrow is loosed? And if this is a case of comparing apples to oranges (which it likely is, I just want to see what you guys think about the quote), why are the shooting mechanics of warbows so vastly different to their composite ancestors/contemporaries in the East?