8 ms·

The statistics about the draw weight of war bows being 100 to 170 lb (45-77 kg) is striking to me. Imagine getting to the gym, picking up a single 45 kg dumbbel

• almostgotcaught 1y ago
  > that would be insane and you'd gas out in seconds. I mean there are lots of people that dumbbell row 95s or 100s or 105s for 8-10 reps (I used to be one em...). That's not really "seconds" but sure it's not a lot either. But then again no one literally only trains dumbbell rows so it's not at all unbelievable to me that you could do this (train to draw a high weight bow many times without "gassing").
  • varelaseb 1y ago
    Why would it ever be impossible/unbelievable? The whole point is it was commonplace for this type of person. It's just surprising that the number's that large.
  • hooloovoo_zoo 1y ago
    Plus a dumbbell is the same weight the whole time while the bow is only the draw weight at full draw.
    • modo_mario 1y ago
      On the other hand as someone noted: you don't bring up a dumbbell by a thin string with 3 fingers. I think when trained and without holding like in the movies you could go a bit longer than you'd expect with dumbbels but goddamn your fingers must hurt after.
  • tmpz22 1y ago
    Yeah but spend your whole life malnourished and march 20 miles THEN do the reps (as peasant archers probably had to do).
    • ses1984 1y ago
      I think only trained professional archers could use a 170lb pull bow at all.
      • sigseg1v 1y ago
        Agreed. I'm an amateur archer and I asked my archery instructor the highest poundage recurve bow he's ever seen someone fire, and he says that one time someone came to the range with a 100 pound draw bow, but he's only seen that once in 10 years. Compound bows of course you can go higher because of mechanical advantage, but either way I don't think that people realize how difficult it is to draw a 100 pound bow. Typical professional recurve bow users would rarely want to exceed 50 pounds as I understand it.
        • Xylakant 1y ago
          There’s also a bit of a different optimization goal in modern archery - the goal is to put as many arrows precisely on a target. More draw weight helps up to a certain extent, but ranges are pre-set and limited and once your draw weight is high enough to comfortably propel the arrow that far, more weight will not improve things. Aiming gets harder at a higher weight. You could shoot a heavier arrow, but the benefits are somewhat limited - it punches a bigger hole which helps a bit, but you’re not trying to kill the target - so the added penetration is not interesting. In a war setting, higher draw weights increase both distance and penetration, which are desirable.
      • acjohnson55 1y ago
        My understanding is that English longbowmen trained from their teens on the weapon and you can see on the skeletons how it warped their bodies.
• make3 1y ago
  The article's point about the lethality of arrows.. I feel like every Youtube test I've seen on the subject shows that Arrows can pierce even full plate pretty reasonably easily, though this is not scientific at all ofc.
  • cwmma 1y ago
    He has an entire article on the subject[1]. Basically when you take into account distance and angles penetration is much harder. 1. https://acoup.blog/2019/07/04/collections-archery-distance-and-kiting/ https://acoup.blog/2019/07/04/collections-archery-distance-a...
  • wchar_t 1y ago
    Not plate, unless at very close range and at a very favorable angle. Mail, sure.
    • kybernetikos 1y ago
      I don't think 'plate' was a standard kind of quality either, so while the top quality plate might be effectively impervious to arrows except for an unlikely lucky splintering shot into a weak point or gap, there were probably lots of thinner, less coverage providing plate armours where the probability of defeat was still very low, but not completely zero.
  • iamthemonster 1y ago
    Check out Tod's Workshop youtube channel. It's only entertainment, but he has a far more realistic overall testing of arrows' armour-piercing capability. A lot of the tests are firing perpendicularly at plate armour that's held in front of a hard surface with no gambeson underneath. When you take account of arrows often arriving at a slight angle, and humans are a movable pile of meat covered in thick cloth with plate on top, then the ability to penetrate deep enough to cause a significant wound is reduced. Never eliminated though! But if arrows really did pierce plate armour, and I was a knight in a battle then I'd just get myself a 6 foot tall 3 foot wide, heavy wooden shield and hide behind it until I got to close quarters. But the fact is people didn't bother doing this because they found a less cumbersome shield more effective, and that suggests that rich plate-armour-clad knights weren't dying left right and centre from arrow fire.
• sandworm101 1y ago
  That is the weight at maximum draw. It is more like pulling back a rubber band that gets progressively harder until you hit your max. It isn't like lifting a weight which is a steady force. Similarly, a lifted weight has inertia. You cant just yank it up. A bow doesn't have inertia. You can pull it back as quick as you like, which makes it easier for a given max "weight" of pull. (Modern bows are different. They use cams and multiple strings to create the opposite effect. They can get lighter as you draw them back, which is a really strange sensation if you aren't expecting it.)
  • hinkley 1y ago
    How modern? Not modern enough for writers and directors of photography to have gotten the wrong idea, right? This trope got in early and has never gone away.
    • sandworm101 1y ago
      After the 18th century, virtually nobody would have used a war bow. Other than recreationists, everyone's archery experience would be of target and hunting bows. Both have much lower draws. When I owned one, it had a 65lb draw with an 80% letoff. So it took maybe 10/15lbs to hold it at full draw. But my bow could still reliably throw arrows out to around 300m, basically double the range of an english longbow. Nobody ever aims a modern bow for max range. Doing so is incredibly dangerous. World record distance shots have broken 1000m.
      • hinkley 1y ago
        I guess that’s true. And when you’re hunting a deer it’s better to not loose an arrow than to shoot it badly, so taking a beat to refine your aim would make sense. I had a teacher that was a bow hunter. I believe he claimed it was the only arrangement fair to the deer. They had a sporting chance. I can’t imagine he fired more than a couple arrows in any hunting trip. Very different from shoot or die.
        • soco 1y ago
• hinkley 1y ago
  YouTube suggested an old NileRed video to me today. He bought 100 lbs of titanium shot for a project. It came in a bag in a metal can. The first two times he lifted the bag he said this isn’t that heavy, maybe he got defrauded, so he got a scale and checked. But by the time he tried to lift it off the scale he was struggling, and getting it back into the metal can was serious work. Stamina separates the pro from the amateur, but fatigue comes for all of us.
  • LgWoodenBadger 1y ago
    FYI, tungsten obviousy, not titanium.
    • hinkley 1y ago
      Oh! Yes. Remarkably dense is definitely not titanium.
  • amstan 1y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99pZKMVQ9P0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99pZKMVQ9P0
• p_ing 1y ago
  Drawing a bow activates muscles not typically used in any other day to day scenarios and activates muscles beyond simply lifting/extending a dumb bell. If you're interested in archery-focused exercises - https://www.morrelltargets.com/blogs/archery-blog/9-strength-and-conditioning-exercises-for-archery https://www.morrelltargets.com/blogs/archery-blog/9-strength... What makes it various bow styles exceptionally difficult is the draw style -- horsebow drawing by a single thumb is especially difficult; war bow has a strange draw style I've never attempted due to shoulder issues, recurve isn't difficult as you get three fingers, and compound archery is simply cheating. Most of these draws aren't a draw and immediate release, but a draw and hold to aim. That's where archery becomes physically exhaustive. There was some recent YTer who showed off by drawing a 100#+ bow but couldn't hit worth shit. Hitting your target takes patience and practice. As noted in another child, draw weights are typically measured at 30", but your draw may only be 29" or may be 31", etc. You'd want a bow that fits your draw length as close as possible, though.
  • lazide 1y ago
    Can confirm Compound archery is cheating - especially with modern releases and sights. A couple months of training and many folks can consistently hit a soup can at 50 yards with a 75# draw (or better). That would be absurd to even contemplate 100 years ago.
    • seabass-labrax 1y ago
      Soup can? That's a bit boring; why not make that, say, an apple, oh and also balance it on the head of the archer's child? Much better!
      • Ichthypresbyter 1y ago
        Of course William Tell was a crossbowman so could hold his bow at full draw for as long as he liked.
    • hirvi74 1y ago
      I never was a fan of compound bows. I remember when I was participating in archery as a hobby. The instructor told us that in competition archery, if one uses a recurve bow, then winners are determined by who hits the bullseye (or closest) the most. In compound bow competitions, losers are determined by who hit the bullseye the least. It's a tongue in cheek way of emphasizing the ridiculous accuracy of compound bows. I prefer the antiquity of recurve bows and the lesser amounts of maintenance that comes with them. Though, I also think compound bows are beyond dangerous in comparison. I have found that recurve archers seem to be better about 'checking' their arrows after missed shots. Many compound users I have known think that as long as the arrow is not completely snapped, then it's safe to use. I just show them the Google images of what happens when an arrow with hairline cracks explodes the near instant the quick-release is released. This issue can happen with high draw weight recurve bows, but I have never seen the damage like what a compound bow can do. Always check your arrows, folks!
• marcus_holmes 1y ago
  I used to have a 100-lb bow (for re-enactment), and the comparison is apt, but slightly off: Imagine picking up a 45-kg weight using only a string held by three fingers. The pressure on the fingers is intense. Getting the shoulders and chest into the pull is the trick, and it's not quite as hard as lifting a weight off the floor because of that. But the fingers are doing a lot of work. Mine had turned white after a few shots, even with a thick leather tab to protect them. We did do volleys, because the public expected it and it was fun to do. But we could not hold for long - the bloke doing the shouting knew that he had only a couple of seconds between "draw" and "loose" or we'd be all over the place.