23 January 2012
Ever wonder what medieval warfare was like ?
Until the invention of firearms, the bow and arrow was the weapon of choice for warfare throughout most of the world. In Hollywood movies, I think it's crossbows and the longbow that get most of the attention (Braveheart et al), but in this video Iza Privezenceva, a young Russian woman, shows how a shorter bow could be wielded as the forerunner of a machine gun.
Imagine being a peasant pressed into the king's service, being provided with a long pointed stick and perhaps a leather shield, and facing a line of these archers...
Via Blame It On The Voices and Neatorama.
Question for someone - which arm needs to be stronger in a professional archer - the one holding the bow, or the one drawing the arrow?
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Wow! This blew my mind. I have never seen anyone shoot like that.
ReplyDeleteI was a big archery buff in my youth, and I still hunt with a compound bow for deer to this day. We always concentrated on shot placement, and for that reason we take a long time to shoot. This girl's style and bow are totally different, and I daresay far more useful against an oncoming troop!
That bow will be weak as hell and that was pretty poor accuracy for the really close range she was firing from.
DeleteFast firing like that is cool and impressive, but is a trick and not really useful at all. If it was effective in combat people would have done it.
The arm drawing the arrow.
ReplyDeleteOh, I missed your question on the first read. I don't know about this style, as I have rarely shot a recurve bow like hers. There are so many muscles involved that I don't know how to answer. I have noticed that after a time away from shooting, my shoulder and back muscles are generally the sorest. When your anchor arm fatigues from holding the bow, you lose accuracy. When your draw arm fatigues, it becomes difficult to bend/break the bow.
ReplyDeleteNot helpful at all, probably, but there is my limited experience. Just guessing watching her shoot, I'd say her draw arm would need to be stronger since she is going for multiple shots over pinpoint accuracy. For a still hunter who gets one shot at game, you need your anchor arm to be steady.
One last thing! If you are shooting a modern compound bow, when the bow "breaks", you usually have an 60-85% let-off of the original draw strength. So if you draw 60lbs, you only have to hold 25lbs. With a bow like she has, you hold the full weight, so it would be even more important for her draw arm to be strong.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I understand. If her right hand draws 60 lbs, then doesn't her left hand have to exert 60 lbs in the opposite direction to prevent the bow from moving?
DeleteI think the difference is in compound vs simple bow (no pulleys on hers, vs several on a compound)
DeleteWhile the compound bow is not broken, both arms have to hold 60 pounds, each. Once it breaks, both arms have to hold 25 pounds, each.
DeleteStan. I think you are correct about a recurve bow such as hers, but Brad is correct about the compound bows he is familiar with.
DeleteIn a compound bow the mechanical system stores energy such that after the "break" (i.e. the point in the draw where the force required is greatest) the system reaches an unstable equilibrium at the higher energy state. From there you can hold the string back with less force than will be delivered to the arrow upon release.
This site has helpful draw force curve diagrams.
Actually, you just have to hold 80% of the weight on that particular type of bow at full draw, due to the siyahs (the ears of the bow) acting as a lever, but still drawing an 80# bow that feels like drawing 60# that's still quite a bit of weight to hold back at anchor
DeleteYou can draw that way, and I probably do that before fatigue sets in. But if you lock out your elbow on your anchor arm before you draw, I think that most of the burden of the pull falls to the drawing arm. The best illustration I can think of is Superman bending jail bars. He pulls them apart so both bend. With a bow, it is more like trying to bend one bar while the other remains straight and is used for leverage to bend the second bar.
ReplyDeleteI'm not certain this is mechanically accurate, but that is how it "feels" as I think about it. I have never thought very deeply about the mechanics before! Alas, I fear that I don't know which muscle is which well enough to say which arm utilizes which muscle.
By locking your anchor arm out, you still have to "push back" 60lbs. However, I think the burden shifts from tricep and shoulder to your trap and deltoid muscles. (I looked at a muscle chart.)
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm obsessed with this. It's a hobby, like I said. But watching her shoot, she is definitely pumping her bicep on her anchor arm and not locking it out. But from the sound of the bow and the ease of draw, I would wager that she isn't pulling a great amount of weight. Because I'm actually trying to kill something quickly and humanely, I pull almost as much weight as I can safely draw and hold, and I am very concerned with accuracy. I think that probably effects(affects?) the draw.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia doesn't say which arm is stronger per se, but English longbowmen wound up with asymmetrically deformed skeletons from the forces involved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Training The answer probably depends on your definition of 'stronger'. Imagine standing on one leg while using the other foot to pick up a forty pound backpack. Then do it over and over and over. Both legs are going to hurt, but in different places.
ReplyDeleteI'm more interested in the way she's holding the arrow. I was taught to hold the arrow with my palm facing inward towards my cheek, she's got it turned the other way. My guess is that it's trading strength for speed - you can't pull as much weight back that way, but you don't have to rearrange your fingers to get the arrow set on the string either.
In the Lord of the Rings movies, Legolas does some rapid-fire archery, but with his rear hand in the conventional position. It gives it away as CG (the arrows were added in post production), since he's neither reversing his grip on the arrow or pausing to adjust it. What he's doing would require his fingers to pass through the string or the arrow to pass through the bow.
I remember hearing an anecdote that the deformation of longbowmen led to the development of the British "two-fingered salute" (Wikipedia has a mention of the urban legend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign#Origins). The story went that the bowmen deformed to the point of being incapable of other labors. Rather than waste resources on keeping these men as prisoners, enemy armies would simply cut off their drawing fingers and send them back. "Intact" bowmen would hold up those fingers as a gesture of defiance to the enemy.
DeleteI wonder if there is a different sort of "slot" on the arrow, making it unnecessary to place the arrow so precisely on the string. That is, if the slot is very wide, you can place it on the string and draw much faster. But if she's doing it with conventional arrows, that is just total WOW! She is Katniss of "The Hunger Games."
ReplyDeleteThis made me think of a recent post on reddit, and before you click on it realize that it's NSFW... (the picture associated with that comment thread that is) http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/or9fu/this_is_what_happens_when_an_arrow_falls_off_the/ Better hope this girl doesn't mess up.
ReplyDeleteImpressive. I'll bet that hurt.
DeleteThe draw arm requires more strength. As mentioned by Mel V. above, skeletons of archers from the middle ages show the same type of changes to the bone structure in the draw arm as one would find in the arm of a modern pitcher.
ReplyDeleteAn expert in archery pointed out that a modern man would be unable to draw a longbow from the time of King Henry V. The longbows used today are roughly equivalent to the training bows used by young boys in that period. Because men grew up using these powerful bows, they developed the strength in their muscles and bones to use them. A modern man today would have to undergo an extreme training program in order to build up the muscle strength and bone density needed to draw a medieval longbow. Back then, training began when they were young boys, and they built up their strength by starting with smaller, easier bows, and working their way up until they were able to draw a full-sized longbow.
To give you an idea of what was involved, some larger longbows had a draw strength of near 200 pounds. Imagine trying to lift a 200-pound weight with one hand, flexing your arm until the weight was almost up to your armpit. And then do it repeatedly several times.
These eastern type composite bows (today known as "horsebows" in western Europe and the US) were never traditionally used with this type of quiver. Instead, the quiver was hung from the belt, on the side of the drawing arm.
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/IlkhanidHorseArcher.jpg
Loading were much different from these.
The bow on the video is a rather weak one. Maybe 30lbs, or something around that. With a warbow, you could not make this stunt for sure.
As a hobby archer (who use the same type of bow, the traditional bow type of Hungary, my home country), I can say that the drawing arm has to be stronger, although back and shoulder muscles do most of the job. The holding arm is mostly static and straight, it's much easier to withstand the force than making the pull with the same force.
Estimates about the draw weigths of bows of old times vary _greatly_.
The strongest longbows found on the Mary Rose were -by the wildest guess- 170-180 lbs at 30" draw length, but most of them only 100-120 lbs, which is not unimaginable to handle by a trained modern archer with good technique and reasonable strength.
Wow. I thought drawing 80lbs on a compound was a feat of strength. I cannot imagine drawing and holding 200lbs or even 100lbs on a recurve/longbow. But then, I have always wondered how a longbow managed to shoot through plate mail. This explains it!
ReplyDeleteThat is not a 60 lb draw. It is, at most, a 30 lb draw, and could be a few as 20. You can tell from the force of the arrows hitting the sheet. She is also about 20 feet from the target. She is slightly faster than archers I have seen in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
ReplyDeleteOne year at Pennsic War, I saw a re-curve archer put 13 arrows down range hitting man sized targets with ranges shifting every 5 seconds from 70 to 20 yards. That is impressive.
The only thing different hear is her upside down draw hand, but you would be hard pressed to do that at a heavier draw weight.
To answer the question(?), if I were that peasant dude facing a whole line of adorable and emancipated young women like her, my last thought would be: "Well, I guess there's worse ways of dying ..." Because even if I had a chance, I would never attack them.
ReplyDeletePeace :-)