It is interesting to note that both Mark Stretton and Jaroslav Petrina have expressed an interest and regard establishing a benchmark for accuracy at 100 yards as an interesting and worthwhile challenge.
Given the present emphasis upon extreme distances, sustaining a rate of fire and concerns about investigating penetration, accuracy at the extreme of practicable distance for deliberate accuracy against a target smaller than a mass of defensively armed men seemed to us not entirely irrelevant, particularly in the light of what was evidently standard practice in another war bow culture with a greater body of literature upon which one might call for useful comparision.
And make no mistake, these people were using bows in the same range of draw wweight for very similar purposes against defensively arrayed men.
I dare say that an investigation of other established war bow cultures (Hindu, Mongol, Korean, Japanese)would show more similarities than differences despite the more obvious differences in style.
To reject this purely on the basis of it being a different type of bow is foolish. We are not comparing compounds and crossbows with the English war bow, but other full draw bows of similar draw weights.
If we had had to face these people, we would have had to deal with it, not make excuses, so what does the response of the nay sayers tell us about the attitudes of todays war bow exponents?
Is it the contention that these cultures would have been more skilled, more accurate than our ancestors, or was there possibly a useful consonance across all well developed war bow using cultures? The evidence on draw weights and general performance, such as it is, would tend to suggest the latter might well be the case.
As for this continual mithering on about "target archery", how many times do I have to write that comparison with contemporary target scores is not the point and criticism by someone who cannot even draw a heavy bow let alone shoot one, of no consequence, so you should set such fears aside.
Anyway, in the Luttrell Psalter you will find an illustration of target archery circa 1330, they even have specialised arrows with pinch nocks and bulbous heads for shooting at the clay faced butts.
The proposal to use a FITA face only arose since it would provide a universally available standard and is of a comparable size for the distance.
The quantity of arrows arose to cover two aspects. One was to place it in the context of maintaining a rate of fire. The other, that scoring rings permit the recording of potentially useful information which can be transmitted to others using the same standard face, and that averages might be derived therefore affording a meaningful comparison, being more representative of ongoing performance that the odd shot or personal best.
Rod.
