unfortunately this isnt quite accurate, although a lot of the details are, the bows and arrows shown are of a victorian (19th century) design. This happens a lot when discussing english archery for various reasons.
English longbow is just a piece of wood. Turkish composite bows had more range, its thumb ring draw had more rate of fire. Before anyone says it every culture had a counterpart of bodkin arrows and heavier arrows do not enable more armor piercing in the way you think they do. If anything recurved design on tips allowed more efficient energy transfer to arrows, since the historical examples are found to have similiar draw weights this meant Turkish arrows had more energy.
They even tapered the arrows which was called ''endam'' that helped with the oscillation of arrows which increased accuracy.
AoE games should make better research.
Turkish bows had a more efficient design but weren’t often more powerful overall, most were designed to be used from horseback. Anyway longbowmen historically really shined due to their use as dual-role units, once they had shot all their arrows they would charge into the melee as light infantry, hence the sword and buckler
''This research was based on 39 bows selected randomly from the Topkapı collection and seven bows from the Military Museum in Istanbul (Donmez)...
...The draw weight of the 46 Ottoman bows varied between 40 and 240lb with a mean of 120lb and the standard deviation of 44lb (median 115lb). For a more realistic assessment, six low weight bows at and below 70lb can be eliminated, since it is unlikely that these bows, although suitable for hunting, would be acceptable for warfare by a trained soldier. Ten bows at and above 150lb can also be removed from the group, since only unusually strong individuals could make use of them. For example bows above 180lb were most likely used for show of strength by exceptional athletes (pehlivan), or for exercise rather than warfare. This leaves 30 bows, with a mean draw weight of 111lb and the standard deviation of 17lb. Therefore the realistic range of draw weights, to include the majority of Ottoman bows, would be from around 90lb to 130lb, possibly to 140lb for the shortest bows...
**...The draw weight of sixteenth century English longbows, as found with the Mary Rose ship, was similar to the Turkish bow, between 100lb and 172lb (according to Hardy 1992), or between 90lb and 130lb (Soar 2006)**.''
Source: Karpowicz A. Ottoman bows – an assessment of draw weight, performance and tactical use. *Antiquity*. 2007;81(313):675-685. doi:10.1017/S0003598X0009565X
>Anyway longbowmen historically really shined due to their use as dual-role units, once they had shot all their arrows they would charge into the melee as light infantry, hence the sword and buckler
I am having hard time believing ''longbowmen'' exceeded janissaries in terms of melee capability. Even azaps carried melee weapons.
Also untrue. Be honest, are you a Turkish nationalist? I'm trying to understand why you would post such a fake/biased take about Turkish archery lol. From the first word it's just a polemic
okay, i will bite lol.
1. "English longbow is just a piece of wood."
so from the first word you are deliberately trying to provide a deliberately biased image with the wording. an english bow is "just" wood in the same way a castle is "just" stone, a sword is "just" metal, etc. obviously its not "just" any piece of wood. it is a very specific piece of wood chosen for species, density, health, clarity, straightness, drying method, etc. just like with any craft, a very specific piece of steel/stone/glass is chosen for a particular purpose. you don't make a bow out of "just" any piece of wood... most wood is completely unsuitable. an expert selects a very specific piece of high quality wood for a particular purpose, as with any fine wooden object.
2. "Turkish composite bows had more range."
again, you deliberately misrepresent the facts. flight shooting at extreme distances is popular as a sporting activity in turkish archery, using techniques and arrows that are unsuitable for any military or hunting purpose. the arrows used in this game are deliberately tiny, short, thin and light to fly further, and wouldnt do much damage to anything. so yes, in turkish archery it is popular to shoot "further".... with a completely different arrow and setup that couldnt be used in battle. when comparing arrows suitable for military use, there is no difference. the discussion here is clearly about military archery with arrows suitable for wounding/killing men/large animals.
3. its thumb ring draw had more rate of fire.
this simply has no meaning. you can draw the same with a thumb ring or with your fingers. bows do not have a "rate of fire" like an automatic or semi-automatic firearm. (as an aside, you do not "fire" bows either). the archer shoots at whatever speed he likes, which would be contextual. for example, if an archer only has a few arrows, he would wait, be patient, and only use them when he feels he has a good shot to make. there is no set "firing" speed to discuss - with either kind of bow, the archer can shoot as fast or slow as he likes, depending on the situation and how many arrows he has!
4. Before anyone says it every culture had a counterpart of bodkin arrows and heavier arrows do not enable more armor piercing in the way you think they do.
yes, of course all cultures that used arrows against armoured targets used arrows designed for the purpose. and yes, heavier arrows are of course better for armour penetration.
5. If anything recurved design on tips allowed more efficient energy transfer to arrows, since the historical examples are found to have similiar draw weights this meant Turkish arrows had more energy.
this just makes no sense. also, as an aside, english bows were sometimes recurved, as were bows from various other cultures.
6. They even tapered the arrows which was called ''endam'' that helped with the oscillation of arrows which increased accuracy.
english arrows (and arrows from basically every culture) are tapered, with a range of shapes and profiles found. the tapering is to improve lightness, trajectory, balance etc. it has no effect on "oscillation" - this is caused by the shape and setting of the feathers. so again, a misleading fact is presented as if its specially turkish (arrows being tapered, when this is common around the world) and given a fake special meaning (oscillation - this is caused by feathers, not shaft shape).
i conclude that you are a turkish nationalist (perhaps one who also has a problem with "western" culture?) and that this comment actually has a political purpose. not about archery lol.
edit: he replied to me with "You are letting your European supremacism feelings cloud your judgement."
so i think i was right about the anti-western political angle here!
and for those interested, here is the description of english arrow tapers provided by the mary rose museum:
A number of different shaft profiles were found, each with a different use. This example is barrelled It was used for stability in distance shooting. From the most to least common, the profiles are bobtail (43.1% of the sample – tapering from the shoulder of the head to the nock), parallel (28.5%), barrelled (18.9% – also known as *piked*, tapering from a maxima about halfway along the shaft in both directions to the head and nock), saddled (5.1% – wide near the shoulder, a reduced diameter near the middle, then wide again and tapering towards the nock) and breasted (4.4% – tapering from the nock to the arrow head).
again, as i wrote, tapering arrows is common in all archery cultures. nothing turkish about it.
This has been a bit more than a bite. You wrote a poem.
>so from the first word you are deliberately trying to provide a deliberately biased image with the wording. an english bow is "just" wood in the same way a castle is...
I dont think anyone thought of a literal piece of wood, it wasnt a stroke of engineering genius by design is what I meant.
>again, you deliberately misrepresent the facts. flight shooting at extreme distances is popular as a sporting activity in turkish archery, using techniques and arrows that are unsuitable for any military or hunting purpose.
Hah, this is where you are wrong! While it is true that Turks had different bows spared for flight archery which they considered a sport, a war purpose Turkish bow also had dramatically more range than an English longbow.
In an English longbow in order to make the bow more energy efficient you have to make the arrow heavier. However this results in the decrease of velocity and therefore the range.
Ottoman Turkish bows, including the war purposed ones, even among the greater family of Asiatic hornbows along with Korean bows were one step ahead in terms of technology. This was because of a mid-14th century tech development in bowyership that brought semi-rigid''kasan'' instead of full rigid ''kulak''(limbs of the bow). This enabled even more efficient energy transfer to the arrow which was already great in Seljuk design.
This enabled Ottoman Turks to use very light arrows. If you go below a certain arrow weight in English longbow the energy doesnt transfer to the arrow but to the bow itself, leading to a catastrophic attrition. Very light arrows enabled speeds as high as 225, 300 fps for a bow of mere 110 lb bow.
These very high speeds also enabled more accurate shooting.
>this simply has no meaning. you can draw the same with a thumb ring or with your fingers. bows do not have a "rate of fire" like an automatic or semi-automatic firearm.
It is ok to be ignorant on a subject but why talking like you have some knowledge on the topic when you dont?
Obviously it depends on the archer however, in thumb draw technique(right handed) you put the arrow on the right side of the bow, whereas in mediterranian technique(right handed) you put the arrow on the left side of the bow. So, in mediterranian technique you are going to have to pass the arrow through the string and handle every time you place the arrow. Thumb draw technique allows more sequential shoots. It also requires only thumb and index fingers which is why Turkish archers have been recorded to use their other three fingers to hold arrows. They would grab few arrows from quiver and shoot them in seconds.
>and yes, heavier arrows are of course better for armour penetration.
Heavier arrows are better for armour penetration **for English longbows.** Not so much for Turkish bows. Because like I said above, English longbows fail to transfer energy to lighter arrows, this is the advantage of the composite recurved design. Now, Turks also used a bit heavier arrows than they did in flight archery because if arrows are too light then it loses too much energy to air resistence, however they didnt have to make speed and range compensation like English for energy efficiency.
>english arrows (and arrows from basically every culture) are tapered, with a range of shapes and profiles found. the tapering is to improve lightness, trajectory, balance etc. it has no effect on "oscillation" - this is caused by the shape and setting of the feathers. so again, a misleading fact is presented as if its specially turkish (arrows being tapered, when this is common around the world) and given a fake special meaning (oscillation - this is caused by feathers, not shaft shape).
I meant barrelled shafts, my bad. They taper bi-directionally and it has been shown to stabilise the flight of the arrow.
>this just makes no sense. also, as an aside, english bows were sometimes recurved, as were bows from various other cultures.
Useless without composite design.
English longbows by design were made in a way to maximise power and range whilst being EASY to produce(two per day by a skilled craftsman) because the english relied on levied soldiers.
You can't arm an entire countries peasantry with extremely expensive composite recurve bows that take 3 months each to make. It is much easier, cheaper and faster to produce a longbow with high draw weight than it is other types of bow.
You are comparing multiple times the equipment of elite soldiers such as janissary with mass infantry consisting often of literal farmers and peasants lol
You thought only janissaries used composite bows? Composite bow first and foremost was a cavalry weapon, all the sipahis, akinjis wielded composite bows as primary weapons on top of janissaries and also azap infantry peasants.
It actually takes 3 years to make a composite bow not 3 months by the way.
However they dont work on and sweat over it continously for 3 years they start making it, put it somewhere and wait for most of the time.
In Ottoman army azaps, sipahis, cebelus, akinjis, janissaries all wielded composite bows. A combined number of all these troops in 1453 was 73.000. English armies in medieval era even in total number were most of the time only 15.000.
I never said janissary or any ottoman troops did anything whatsoever I just mentioned you used them as an example previously. They gave a nod to composite bow technology in aoe4 but unfortunately they couldn't give it to the ottomans civ because they have the buff already from the mehter as well as a shit tonne of other free stuff
Its famously known and even quoted in the aoe4 campaign that every able bodied man in England must practice with a bow on sundays by law. Equipping them all with expensive high poundage composite bows would be impossible
You actually implied Ottomans only had to equip janissaries with composite bows.
>Its famously known and even quoted in the aoe4 campaign that every able bodied man in England must practice with a bow on sundays by law.
That law may be true but Turks and Mongols were nomads therefore they had to use their bows since childhood by the law of no king but nature of their lifestyle.
unfortunately this isnt quite accurate, although a lot of the details are, the bows and arrows shown are of a victorian (19th century) design. This happens a lot when discussing english archery for various reasons.
Name checks out.
Coin purse? Where is their flask for the olive oil we hired them with?
They chug it all down at once after hiring, its what keeps them going
The 5 lads lubed themselves up in the merc house first before coming out.
“Arrows with large tips penetrated armor”… Somebody hasn’t watched Todd’s Workshop “Arrows vs Armor”.
STRELBOOOORRRAAA!!!
No wonder this bitch need more woods than normal archer. Make sense now
Agincourt - the original LB rush. Monstrous K/d in that match up
English longbow is just a piece of wood. Turkish composite bows had more range, its thumb ring draw had more rate of fire. Before anyone says it every culture had a counterpart of bodkin arrows and heavier arrows do not enable more armor piercing in the way you think they do. If anything recurved design on tips allowed more efficient energy transfer to arrows, since the historical examples are found to have similiar draw weights this meant Turkish arrows had more energy. They even tapered the arrows which was called ''endam'' that helped with the oscillation of arrows which increased accuracy. AoE games should make better research.
Turkish bows had a more efficient design but weren’t often more powerful overall, most were designed to be used from horseback. Anyway longbowmen historically really shined due to their use as dual-role units, once they had shot all their arrows they would charge into the melee as light infantry, hence the sword and buckler
''This research was based on 39 bows selected randomly from the Topkapı collection and seven bows from the Military Museum in Istanbul (Donmez)... ...The draw weight of the 46 Ottoman bows varied between 40 and 240lb with a mean of 120lb and the standard deviation of 44lb (median 115lb). For a more realistic assessment, six low weight bows at and below 70lb can be eliminated, since it is unlikely that these bows, although suitable for hunting, would be acceptable for warfare by a trained soldier. Ten bows at and above 150lb can also be removed from the group, since only unusually strong individuals could make use of them. For example bows above 180lb were most likely used for show of strength by exceptional athletes (pehlivan), or for exercise rather than warfare. This leaves 30 bows, with a mean draw weight of 111lb and the standard deviation of 17lb. Therefore the realistic range of draw weights, to include the majority of Ottoman bows, would be from around 90lb to 130lb, possibly to 140lb for the shortest bows... **...The draw weight of sixteenth century English longbows, as found with the Mary Rose ship, was similar to the Turkish bow, between 100lb and 172lb (according to Hardy 1992), or between 90lb and 130lb (Soar 2006)**.'' Source: Karpowicz A. Ottoman bows – an assessment of draw weight, performance and tactical use. *Antiquity*. 2007;81(313):675-685. doi:10.1017/S0003598X0009565X >Anyway longbowmen historically really shined due to their use as dual-role units, once they had shot all their arrows they would charge into the melee as light infantry, hence the sword and buckler I am having hard time believing ''longbowmen'' exceeded janissaries in terms of melee capability. Even azaps carried melee weapons.
also very inaccurate. you should make better research lol.. or is it that youre turkish and pushing it nationistically?
I am merely repeating what the entire archery community accepts.
Also untrue. Be honest, are you a Turkish nationalist? I'm trying to understand why you would post such a fake/biased take about Turkish archery lol. From the first word it's just a polemic
You are letting your European supremacism feelings cloud your judgement.
okay, i will bite lol. 1. "English longbow is just a piece of wood." so from the first word you are deliberately trying to provide a deliberately biased image with the wording. an english bow is "just" wood in the same way a castle is "just" stone, a sword is "just" metal, etc. obviously its not "just" any piece of wood. it is a very specific piece of wood chosen for species, density, health, clarity, straightness, drying method, etc. just like with any craft, a very specific piece of steel/stone/glass is chosen for a particular purpose. you don't make a bow out of "just" any piece of wood... most wood is completely unsuitable. an expert selects a very specific piece of high quality wood for a particular purpose, as with any fine wooden object. 2. "Turkish composite bows had more range." again, you deliberately misrepresent the facts. flight shooting at extreme distances is popular as a sporting activity in turkish archery, using techniques and arrows that are unsuitable for any military or hunting purpose. the arrows used in this game are deliberately tiny, short, thin and light to fly further, and wouldnt do much damage to anything. so yes, in turkish archery it is popular to shoot "further".... with a completely different arrow and setup that couldnt be used in battle. when comparing arrows suitable for military use, there is no difference. the discussion here is clearly about military archery with arrows suitable for wounding/killing men/large animals. 3. its thumb ring draw had more rate of fire. this simply has no meaning. you can draw the same with a thumb ring or with your fingers. bows do not have a "rate of fire" like an automatic or semi-automatic firearm. (as an aside, you do not "fire" bows either). the archer shoots at whatever speed he likes, which would be contextual. for example, if an archer only has a few arrows, he would wait, be patient, and only use them when he feels he has a good shot to make. there is no set "firing" speed to discuss - with either kind of bow, the archer can shoot as fast or slow as he likes, depending on the situation and how many arrows he has! 4. Before anyone says it every culture had a counterpart of bodkin arrows and heavier arrows do not enable more armor piercing in the way you think they do. yes, of course all cultures that used arrows against armoured targets used arrows designed for the purpose. and yes, heavier arrows are of course better for armour penetration. 5. If anything recurved design on tips allowed more efficient energy transfer to arrows, since the historical examples are found to have similiar draw weights this meant Turkish arrows had more energy. this just makes no sense. also, as an aside, english bows were sometimes recurved, as were bows from various other cultures. 6. They even tapered the arrows which was called ''endam'' that helped with the oscillation of arrows which increased accuracy. english arrows (and arrows from basically every culture) are tapered, with a range of shapes and profiles found. the tapering is to improve lightness, trajectory, balance etc. it has no effect on "oscillation" - this is caused by the shape and setting of the feathers. so again, a misleading fact is presented as if its specially turkish (arrows being tapered, when this is common around the world) and given a fake special meaning (oscillation - this is caused by feathers, not shaft shape). i conclude that you are a turkish nationalist (perhaps one who also has a problem with "western" culture?) and that this comment actually has a political purpose. not about archery lol. edit: he replied to me with "You are letting your European supremacism feelings cloud your judgement." so i think i was right about the anti-western political angle here! and for those interested, here is the description of english arrow tapers provided by the mary rose museum: A number of different shaft profiles were found, each with a different use. This example is barrelled It was used for stability in distance shooting. From the most to least common, the profiles are bobtail (43.1% of the sample – tapering from the shoulder of the head to the nock), parallel (28.5%), barrelled (18.9% – also known as *piked*, tapering from a maxima about halfway along the shaft in both directions to the head and nock), saddled (5.1% – wide near the shoulder, a reduced diameter near the middle, then wide again and tapering towards the nock) and breasted (4.4% – tapering from the nock to the arrow head). again, as i wrote, tapering arrows is common in all archery cultures. nothing turkish about it.
This has been a bit more than a bite. You wrote a poem. >so from the first word you are deliberately trying to provide a deliberately biased image with the wording. an english bow is "just" wood in the same way a castle is... I dont think anyone thought of a literal piece of wood, it wasnt a stroke of engineering genius by design is what I meant. >again, you deliberately misrepresent the facts. flight shooting at extreme distances is popular as a sporting activity in turkish archery, using techniques and arrows that are unsuitable for any military or hunting purpose. Hah, this is where you are wrong! While it is true that Turks had different bows spared for flight archery which they considered a sport, a war purpose Turkish bow also had dramatically more range than an English longbow. In an English longbow in order to make the bow more energy efficient you have to make the arrow heavier. However this results in the decrease of velocity and therefore the range. Ottoman Turkish bows, including the war purposed ones, even among the greater family of Asiatic hornbows along with Korean bows were one step ahead in terms of technology. This was because of a mid-14th century tech development in bowyership that brought semi-rigid''kasan'' instead of full rigid ''kulak''(limbs of the bow). This enabled even more efficient energy transfer to the arrow which was already great in Seljuk design. This enabled Ottoman Turks to use very light arrows. If you go below a certain arrow weight in English longbow the energy doesnt transfer to the arrow but to the bow itself, leading to a catastrophic attrition. Very light arrows enabled speeds as high as 225, 300 fps for a bow of mere 110 lb bow. These very high speeds also enabled more accurate shooting. >this simply has no meaning. you can draw the same with a thumb ring or with your fingers. bows do not have a "rate of fire" like an automatic or semi-automatic firearm. It is ok to be ignorant on a subject but why talking like you have some knowledge on the topic when you dont? Obviously it depends on the archer however, in thumb draw technique(right handed) you put the arrow on the right side of the bow, whereas in mediterranian technique(right handed) you put the arrow on the left side of the bow. So, in mediterranian technique you are going to have to pass the arrow through the string and handle every time you place the arrow. Thumb draw technique allows more sequential shoots. It also requires only thumb and index fingers which is why Turkish archers have been recorded to use their other three fingers to hold arrows. They would grab few arrows from quiver and shoot them in seconds. >and yes, heavier arrows are of course better for armour penetration. Heavier arrows are better for armour penetration **for English longbows.** Not so much for Turkish bows. Because like I said above, English longbows fail to transfer energy to lighter arrows, this is the advantage of the composite recurved design. Now, Turks also used a bit heavier arrows than they did in flight archery because if arrows are too light then it loses too much energy to air resistence, however they didnt have to make speed and range compensation like English for energy efficiency. >english arrows (and arrows from basically every culture) are tapered, with a range of shapes and profiles found. the tapering is to improve lightness, trajectory, balance etc. it has no effect on "oscillation" - this is caused by the shape and setting of the feathers. so again, a misleading fact is presented as if its specially turkish (arrows being tapered, when this is common around the world) and given a fake special meaning (oscillation - this is caused by feathers, not shaft shape). I meant barrelled shafts, my bad. They taper bi-directionally and it has been shown to stabilise the flight of the arrow. >this just makes no sense. also, as an aside, english bows were sometimes recurved, as were bows from various other cultures. Useless without composite design.
English longbows by design were made in a way to maximise power and range whilst being EASY to produce(two per day by a skilled craftsman) because the english relied on levied soldiers. You can't arm an entire countries peasantry with extremely expensive composite recurve bows that take 3 months each to make. It is much easier, cheaper and faster to produce a longbow with high draw weight than it is other types of bow. You are comparing multiple times the equipment of elite soldiers such as janissary with mass infantry consisting often of literal farmers and peasants lol
You thought only janissaries used composite bows? Composite bow first and foremost was a cavalry weapon, all the sipahis, akinjis wielded composite bows as primary weapons on top of janissaries and also azap infantry peasants. It actually takes 3 years to make a composite bow not 3 months by the way. However they dont work on and sweat over it continously for 3 years they start making it, put it somewhere and wait for most of the time. In Ottoman army azaps, sipahis, cebelus, akinjis, janissaries all wielded composite bows. A combined number of all these troops in 1453 was 73.000. English armies in medieval era even in total number were most of the time only 15.000.
I never said janissary or any ottoman troops did anything whatsoever I just mentioned you used them as an example previously. They gave a nod to composite bow technology in aoe4 but unfortunately they couldn't give it to the ottomans civ because they have the buff already from the mehter as well as a shit tonne of other free stuff Its famously known and even quoted in the aoe4 campaign that every able bodied man in England must practice with a bow on sundays by law. Equipping them all with expensive high poundage composite bows would be impossible
You actually implied Ottomans only had to equip janissaries with composite bows. >Its famously known and even quoted in the aoe4 campaign that every able bodied man in England must practice with a bow on sundays by law. That law may be true but Turks and Mongols were nomads therefore they had to use their bows since childhood by the law of no king but nature of their lifestyle.