Talk:Bow and arrow/Archive 1

I think the bow wasn´t a late invention in America! And they didn´t just have long- and flatbows, the Plains tribes like the Lakota(Teton Sioux) or Tsitsita(Cheyenne) had doubble-curved composite bows! Europeans never invented double curved composite bows! The Indians are not less clever than whites! Why they shouldn´t develope their own bows! Steve 13/11/06

I read an article about that, don't remember which tribe, but there's only a couple of men who still make their tribe's traditional horn and sinew laminated recurve bow.

Rojoe is a great bow hunter - removal

Removed: "Rojoe is a great bow hunter." Is this a joke someone placed here, or is there a reason for it? As far as I can tell, it's not relevant, and if it does contain something useful, it's not placed in context in order to make it comprehensible. Tom M 22:29, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone know what the meaning of the phrases "The middle part is biconvex . . . the convexity of the midsection decreases through time." This is in reference to the Holmegård bow and I would assume refers to a reflex or deflex in the handle of the bow, but cannot find a reference to a similar shape in the Bowyers Bible chapter on Ancient European bows which talks a good deal about these bows —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mev532 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 7 August 2005

No, I think it refers to the curve of the wood on the cut surface, like a lens. 80.126.21.216 (talk) 18:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Ballista

The ballista description sounds like it was written by a dumb person. --Lomacar 03:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

History

North America was settled by Paleo-Indian peoples during the late Pleistocene (about 20,000 years ago) who did not possess the bow and arrow. Was archery developed independently by Native Americans? I placed this same query in the discussion of the article on Archery Jay Gregg 18:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that there is a problem in the phrase "Mesolithic arrows have been found in England, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. They were often rather long (up to 120 cm [4 ft]) and made of hazel (Corylus avellana), wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana) and chokecherry (Cornus alba)". To my knowledge, Chokecherry is native to North America, and would not have grown in Europe during the Mesolithic. Kie, Non-registered user, 2:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Chokecherry duly removed from Europe. Richard Keatinge 14:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Settlement to America

America was settled with at least three different waves before the arrival of Europeans(Newfoundland,Carribean)/Chinese(Peru). It must have started at least after 18000 BCE (marker-mutation on Y chromosome) from Asia and the last one of these waves arrived around 9000 BCE. 1000 BCE came the Inuit, Yupik and Unungun, but they are usually not counted. The oldest pictures of bows are found in the Pyrenees, dating back 15000 BCE and 11000-9000 BCE some remains are found in what is today Northern Germany and Denmark. The Inuit even had crossbows for whale hunting. So there is a chance, that the second wave (Apache and Comanche are descendants of these) brought some kind of bow along. But the history of settlement is varied and there are possibilitys of a small and very early European immigration based on the Kennewick-man and mitochondrial DNA-findings in Native Americans (mitochondrial DNA is just passed on by the mother, European immigrants usually did not allow their few women to the natives for reproduction). I have found some statements, that the bow used by Indians in North America is an Asian doublebow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.101.225.125 (talk) 01:36, 5 May 2006

But no very old bows have so far been found in the americas. Not even older than 1000 years, in fact 80.126.21.216 (talk) 18:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

== Not able to add image ==

Why is this not possible to add this image in this article. Is this because of the language difference for one being English and the other Dutch? http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Rama_sita.jpg

German(Deutsch) not Dutch(Nederlands). Yes it is not possible to transfer pictures from other language wikis, but every picture has a source and you can upload it into English wiki and do the painful firsttime procedure of tagging and sourcing it right. I asked the guy uploading it on German wiki to help you. Wandalstouring 12:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, De is for German. I am sorry. Thanks a lot for the help in explaining and also for the help with the image. I will add it later. Thanking you --Chanakyathegreat 09:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Electross

I removed this, it was someones idea of a joke. Just in case you don't think I'm qualified, I are engi . . enji . . . one of the guys who builds things and a former Royal Archer of the Kingdom of the West of the Society for Creative Anachronism.67.174.53.196 06:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Yumi Sexist?

Is it just me or is the last sentence of the Yumi bow paragraph sexist? It basically is saying that broken thumb section of bow is a problem to woman because they can't take the pain.

If that is a historical observation (i.e. real attitude of Japanese warriors in the past), it should remain, but be noted as such. We shouldn't attempt to rewrite history just because our cultural attitudes have changed. ⇔ ChristTrekker 17:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I took that last sentence out.

"A disadvantage that causes problems more for the female archers, if the glove or yugake is damaged and the thumb and wrist became excessively articulated, the archer may have to endure pain while drawing, or indeed be unable to draw their bow."

Something like that really needs to be sourced, and described as a historical attitude. I have no knowledge of the subject I'm afraid, but I feel that this is inappropriate without rigorous sourcing. I may be entirely wrong here, but the sentence reads like a translation from a book, so a source may exist. But even then, it should be described as an attitude rather than fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.122.161 (talk) 16:33, 16 July 2007

types of bows

Are the flat bow and korean bow a subtype of some other, such as long bow or composite bow? If so, let's reflect that. Also, as all these types have main articles, can we tighten up the entries here and summarize them to make this article read more like an overview? ⇔ ChristTrekker 17:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

There's been some discussion over at Talk:archery regarding how to classify bows. That much detail probably belongs here rather than there. ⇔ ChristTrekker 19:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I have moved all the various sections on (slightly) different sorts of composite bow, to the Composite bow article? It seems a bit overdue. Richard Keatinge 14:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please put reference about selfbow —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.180.215.142 (talk) 10:39, 23 January 2007

I have also set up articles on bow types, classified mainly by material and by profile shape.Richard Keatinge 14:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Penetration of armour

In the Middle Ages, European powers made effective use of the longbow as a major weapon of war. It was an extremely effective weapon in battle and could penetrate armor from a considerable distance.

I saw a history TV programme about longbows recently in which the Royal Military College of Science tested a longbow's ability to penetrate armour of the time. They showed that it could penetrate it, but only at a range of 20 m or less. So, 'considerable distance' is not really true. Blaise 21:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I saw a similar show, (maybe the same, maybe not) and I noticed multiple mistakes: The bow was under poundage, the bow was underdrawn, the arrow was under spined, the "bodkin" point was not the design actually used, and they did not use tallow as a penetrating agent. Draw your own conclusions.71.197.106.123 01:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Either way, longbow penetrating armour from considerable distance is both vague, and not proven. Firstly, 20 m is not a considerable distance- it is point blank range. Secondly, "armour" can be many things- padded and quilted armour, maille, and plate are very different beasts. We also need citations for this. 38.98.155.132 18:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a History Channel show which used modern forensic techniques to examine historic battles. One episode was on the Battle of Hastings where an army of organized English peasants defeated the French "army" made up of individual nobles wearing steel plate armor, some on foot and more on horseback. They found that there were three primary factors which led to the English victory. One was the mud, it stuck in heavy globs to the steel armor boot plating of the knights on foot. Second was the terrain, the English were on top of a low and narrow ridge which caused a 'bottleneck' the French had to advance through in order not to have the disavantage of attacking from low ground. Third was the effect of the thousands of high-trajectory longbow fired arrows on the French horses. With hundreds of horses down from arrow strikes, the French couldn't advance, leaving them vulnerable to further arrow attacks and close in hand to hand fighting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizzybody (talk • contribs) 05:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

There is an equation for it HERE: http://web.mit.edu/21h.416/www/militarytechnology/armor.html I haven't run the math on it, but I expect a longbow with a Mary Rose sort of draw weight (150-200 lbs), and a direct hit would do the job. I've read medieval plate being somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 mm thick, with the later being largely 'proof' against the crossbow. Theblindsage 01:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Age of Bows

The statement "The oldest bows known so far come from the Holmegård swamp---" begs the question, how old were these bows? If they know they are the oldest, they had to date them. That data should be included here. Olan7allen 00:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)olan7allen

Late to answer, I know. ... the Holmegaard bows are from about 6000 BC. — NRen2k5^(TALK), 07:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

no, rather older, about 8000 bc. 80.126.21.216 (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

"from the Grotta dell'Addaura in Italy" - But at least the italian article about this grotta makes no reference to bows or archery. What is the reason for its inclusion as proof for the oldest bows here? 80.126.21.216 (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Shortbow

Any chance anyone has an authoritative source denouncing the 'shortbow' as a DnD-derived neologism? Theblindsage 01:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It isn't. Short bows exist, they were normal for Bushmen and Californians. They were never European, though there were late Victorian historians who thought they were. See The Great War Bow by Strickland and Hardy. Richard Keatinge 10:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)