A Real Archer In Training

[phlebas]

Love the 2nd one and the sheer power shown in using the bow displayed in this artwork's subject

True, it's a beauty. Unfortunately I realise now that I also posted earlier in this thread! Sorry.

Something else that has been posted here before, but I was reminded of again recently. The amazing Bavarian opera performance of Tannhauser complete with topless archers


And the stupidity of modern censorship
https://www.abc.net.au/classic/read-and-watch/news/opera-censored-on-facebook-for-nudity/10849570

 

[RacingRodent]

Well as phrased that is sort of misleading. The current testing would seem to indicate that the longbow was not effective as a direct fire weapon against plate armor at more than 50 yards or so by the end of it's career.

Yet there is plate armor in existence which clearly indicates that they were penetrated by a bow of some type.

We also have to remember that a full plate suit was incredibly expensive and was a minority of the type of armor deployed on any battlefield.

And certainly the long bow destroyed French cavalry based armies several times during the 100 years war.

In it's time (virtually from the dawn of recorded warfare) depending on the weapon and how it was deployed the bow (of all types) was an incredibly effective weapon. It's displacement from the battlefield as a stand off weapon only came after firearms were able to be mass produced at a relatively small per unit cost and quickly.

I'm good (not great) with the cross, horse and long bow able to effectively deal with targets out to 60 yards at a rate of aimed fire of about a shaft every 10 seconds (With a cross bow about 1 bolt every 20-30 seconds).

However if I was facing an opponent with an M16, their rate of fire is a 100 times mine (assuming they had a clip that big) and the effective range is something over 400 meters.

Not a fair match and if I'm going to be in a fight I want to be on the side of the guys being unfair.

kisses

willowfall

The bow full stop from 2500BC to today, only seems to be combat effective at close ranges. So we have Xenophon noting archers being outranged by slingers in incidents in his Anabasis and the ancient world's assumption that archers could not hold their front by shooting alone.

As to why firearms supplanted the bow? Because they were better. This was tested in battle from North America to Asia, by such varied peoples as the Native Americans against each other and the European interlopers and the Japanese against each other and the Koreans and Chinese.

Originally firearms were more expensive, required more training to wield safely and effectively (handling loose powder takes care and attention) but consistently prevailed on the battlefield.

A good, actually I undersell it, excellent blog on the subject can be found here: Bows V Musket

This quote by the Korean official Yu Song-nyong, for example, is pretty damning:

In the 1592 invasion, everything was swept away. Within a fortnight or a month the cities and fortresses were lost, and everything in the eight directions had crumbled. Although it was [partly] due to there having been a century of peace and the people not being familiar with warfare that this happened, it was really because the Japanese had the use of muskets that could reach beyond several hundred paces, that always pierced what they struck, that came like the wind and the hail, and with which bows and arrows could not compare.​

The Japanese were in agreement that their musketry was a great advantage. One of the Japanese commanders wrote home in 1592:

Please arrange to send us guns and ammunition. There is absolutely no use for spears. It is vital that you arrange somehow to obtain a number of guns. Furthermore, you should certainly see to it that those person departing [for Korea] understand this situation. The arrangements for guns should receive your closest attention.​

There is a lot more to find on that blog include a comparison of the contemporary prices of bows and arrows versus powder, shot and firearms

16th century price of weapons

I stumbled across it why trying to find out why...if bows were so awesome as claimed, guns won when faced by equal numbers and still tended to win when confronted by greater numbers of bowmen. I found it very illuminating and of course the argument better fits the historical record.

 

[willowfall]

True, it's a beauty. Unfortunately I realise now that I also posted earlier in this thread! Sorry.

Something else that has been posted here before, but I was reminded of again recently. The amazing Bavarian opera performance of Tannhauser complete with topless archers
View attachment 724131View attachment 724132View attachment 724133View attachment 724134View attachment 724135View attachment 724136View attachment 724137View attachment 724138View attachment 724139View attachment 724140

And the stupidity of modern censorship
https://www.abc.net.au/classic/read-and-watch/news/opera-censored-on-facebook-for-nudity/10849570

If you can't hit a target that large at that range you shouldn't pick up a bow.

kisses

willowfall

 

[willowfall]

The bow full stop from 2500BC to today, only seems to be combat effective at close ranges. So we have Xenophon noting archers being outranged by slingers in incidents in his Anabasis and the ancient world's assumption that archers could not hold their front by shooting alone.

As to why firearms supplanted the bow? Because they were better. This was tested in battle from North America to Asia, by such varied peoples as the Native Americans against each other and the European interlopers and the Japanese against each other and the Koreans and Chinese.

Originally firearms were more expensive, required more training to wield safely and effectively (handling loose powder takes care and attention) but consistently prevailed on the battlefield.

Couple of things here as people (not you) tend to pimp their views by picking statistics to fit their view point (which is virtually what the science of statistics is all about).

One if the bow was ineffective it would not have remained on the battlefield for thousands of years. And let's use the sling as an example. It has been around at least as long as the bow (and probably far longer) yet in never supplanted the bow on the battlefield, nor equaled it in numbers and the bow remained a first line weapon for about a millennia longer than the sling.

Remember armies (warriors) are loathed to use ineffective weapons (their lives depend on their weapons) which is why the highly vaunted Roman army (which dominated it's theater of operations far longer than any other army in history) constantly updated and changed the weapons they used as they encountered new technology and tactics.

Two, Xenophon was a propagandist for the way the Greeks did things. Now the Greeks were good soldiers (which is why they were hired as mercenaries all over the med) but the bow was not a weapon in favor in classical Greece (as opposed to Homeric Greece). And Xenophon had to adopt his tactics during the retreat and rearm some of his soldiers precisely because he was having trouble with lightly armed missile troops. If those troops were ineffective against heavily armored soldiers why did he change?

3 relatively small mostly bow armed forces destroyed much larger forces French heavy armored troops as late as the 100 Years War. Please explain how then the bow was ineffective?

The hand gun appeared on the European battlefield in the early 1400s and took 200+ years to push the bow (and every other infantry weapon other than the sword) off the battlefield. It is clear the gun was not a world beater out of the gate.

And I never said the bow was more effective than the musket. The advantage a firearm has over the bow is easy of use (even a musket had that) for untrained troops. Certainly the reason the gun replaced the bow is that it WAS a more effective weapon. It was also the end product of 2,000 years of technological advances. In 2,000 years what chances do you give a guy with a semi-automatic verses what ever they are using then?

Quite simply the bow was used for thousands of years against all types of soldiers until it was supplanted by something better because it was EFFECTIVE.

kisses

willowfall

 

[RacingRodent]

The Greeks also used troops with bows. Xenophon was first and foremost writing an account of his adventures for his friends. There was no great publishing industry in Ancient Greece. Xenophon does not disparage bows he simply noted occasions where slingers were more effective.

You can read the Anabasis online here for example

The best explanation for such incidents are local conditions and training. If you can hit a target at 60 yards when your opponent needs to close to fifty then you have the advantage. Life can be more complex but sometimes it can also be that simple.

Now until the coming of the gun there is very little else that can match a bow's ease of use, portability and handiness of ammunition carriage. Lethality was a lot lower than some weapons but it still killed people. Besides that battle is most often about making the other lot give in or run away and wounding enough will do it. A range of fifty-ish yards is also quite a lot in most pre-gunpowder world circumstances.

Still bows do not tend to see much use by themselves and we not just talking side arms like swords. Typically bow armed troops tend to operate as support for some kind of spear or other pole-arm equipped troops. You see this a lot throughout history. Mind you also see a lot of almost entirely spear armed forces. The Roman principes for example were armed with the pilum which the latest scholarly consensus is trending towards viewing as a heavy throwing spear...though sources seem to indicate it was mostly used as a throwing weapon rather than a thrusting one, the gladius seeing a lot more melee use with the Romans than most folks swords.

Give me a force with a competent melee component backed by bowmen and I reckon I would have a tactical advantage. Giving me a spear armed force however is not necessarily a complete disaster.

Now as you note the handgun did take perhaps 200 years to supplant the bow in European warfare, incredibly fast considering the bow as a weapon dates from pre-history. Further it did this even arriving in cultures with generations of trained bowmen. Easier training was never going to be enough of an advantage. To replace the bowmen first you must kill the bowmen because there are already lots on militia lists and in mercenary companies to be called upon who are already trained.

I love bows, they are fascinating weapons and they have a history spanning more than ten thousand years. Clearly not ineffective. The gun however must have been able to offer clear advantages to even compete and do so right from the start. Because people felt comfortable taking handcannon into battle in the middle ages and like you say no one takes an ineffective weapon to war and it is incredibly unusual for soldiers to shell out their own money on something less than worth it besides.

Edit: a quick extra note. I am currently trying to research the plumbata which is/was a weighted dart used by the Romans in late antiquity-the early middle ages. Now fan boys like Vegetius make it sound awesome, so my question is why did no one else seem to take it up, then again it was clearly not completely useless as it seems to have been in use at least two-three centuries and possibly more depending on when the Strategikon of Maurice was written

 

[Jollyrei]

If you can't hit a target that large at that range you shouldn't pick up a bow.

kisses

willowfall

See, and here I was speculating whether the women were selected for 1) height; 2) some idea of attractiveness; 3) breast size; 4) strength and ability to bend the bow and hold an arrow; 5) actual experience with bow and accuracy. I suspect that the first 3 categories may have been favoured over the last 2.

 

[phlebas]

See, and here I was speculating whether the women were selected for 1) height; 2) some idea of attractiveness; 3) breast size; 4) strength and ability to bend the bow and hold an arrow; 5) actual experience with bow and accuracy. I suspect that the first 3 categories may have been favoured over the last 2.

You forgot grace. If you watch the clips they are very graceful. The other thing I find fascinating is, it's not about breast size. There is a wonderful variety of sizes and shapes on display, from nice and round to almost completely flat. This is for more interesting than a line of "perfect", identikit busts. And of course it's an opera, theoretically these women are the chorus, and topless performance would not have been the first thing they expected to be doing on stage. They do a splendid job

Now Willow and RR, my 2 cents worth.

And I never said the bow was more effective than the musket. The advantage a firearm has over the bow is easy of use (even a musket had that) for untrained troops. Certainly the reason the gun replaced the bow is that it WAS a more effective weapon. . . . . . Quite simply the bow was used for thousands of years against all types of soldiers until it was supplanted by something better because it was EFFECTIVE.

The bow varied greatly across time and regions. The bows Xenophon mentions are not the ones used at Hastings, or at Agincourt, or by the Mongols, or the Japanese. It was a useful, evolving weapon, it could be something a peasant hunter could knock together, or something carefully crafted from the best materials. It was effective on the battlefield, but usually in conjunction with other arms.

The best explanation for such incidents are local conditions and training. If you can hit a target at 60 yards when your opponent needs to close to fifty then you have the advantage. Life can be more complex but sometimes it can also be that simple.

Yes, and this is presumably where the sling eventually lost out, it was unable to keep up with advances in bow technology.

Still bows do not tend to see much use by themselves and we not just talking side arms like swords. Typically bow armed troops tend to operate as support for some kind of spear or other pole-arm equipped troops. You see this a lot throughout history. Mind you also see a lot of almost entirely spear armed forces.

This. The primary weapon was almost always some variation on the spear. Where bow armed troops were dominant, it was usually in combination with the additional advantage of being mounted. Even well into the era of the firearm, the spear lived on in the form of a bayonet, and it was ranks of steel points not lead balls that held the cavalry at bay.[/QUOTE]

 

[Jackie1111]

Stumbled upon this thread last night. I LOVE many of the pics posted. Like you all, I appreciate the dedication to historical accuracy in many of them. It's easy to forget that ancient female warriors frequently went into battle with their bare breasts flopping about - because it was such a distraction for the enemy!

A few of my faves. I would be honored if any of these gals were selected to carry out my execution.

 

[Jackie1111]

I know the focus here is on the archers, and such strong and sexy archers they are! But I wish this thread showed a few more victims.

This pic made quite an impact on me.

 

[willowfall]

This. The primary weapon was almost always some variation on the spear. Where bow armed troops were dominant, it was usually in combination with the additional advantage of being mounted. Even well into the era of the firearm, the spear lived on in the form of a bayonet, and it was ranks of steel points not lead balls that held the cavalry at bay.

Like any other weapon the bow went thru a massive number of iterations and improvements before technology finally passed it by. And thru out its history it only had to be good enough to defeat whomever you were going to encounter. So for example the Persian bow was highly effective against virtually all of its opponents until it ran into the heavily armored Greek Hoplite (who was sort of unique for his time in the Western World) against whom it was ineffective. But it wasn't discarded as a weapon for about 5,000 years. Probably only the spear has a longer reign as a battlefield weapon.

Warfare has always been a race between offense and defense. Action\Reaction.

The pole arm was always the dominant weapon on the battlefield. Even in cavalry based armies like the Mongols their version of 'heavy infantry' was heavy lance armed cavalry.

The bayonet (spear) was the infantry arm of decision thru the Napoleonic wars.

By the American Civil War only 7% of the men who went thru Union Army hospitals had wounds inflicted by an edged weapon. By the Franco-Prussian Was (1870) the real killer became artillery.

So if you figure the bayonet (spear) fell out of favor for the rifled weapon in say 1820 or so and was replaced by artillery as the real killer of men in 1870 the individual firearm as the 'Queen of the Battlefield' really only had a 50 year run.

kisses

willowfall

ps: THAT doesn't mean the individual firearm is ineffective, that means it is no longer the dominant weapon on the battlefield.

 

[foggybottom]

I know the focus here is on the archers, and such strong and sexy archers they are! But I wish this thread showed a few more victims.

This pic made quite an impact on me.

That pic is from Amazon Warriors "Runaway Princess" Jackie that I posted under "The Demise of Princess Mia" awhile back with Mia Mane as the princess and Naya as the archer.

 

[foggybottom]

Internet find and I wonder if it's who I think it is, what say you bobinder? Quality is not that great so I'm not sure but it resembles Alice. If so I've never seen that set.

 

[bobinder]

Internet find and I wonder if it's who I think it is, what say you bobinder? Quality is not that great so I'm not sure but it resembles Alice. If so I've never seen that set.

Thanks Foggy, it does indeed resemble Alice, although I cannot make a positive identification at this stage.
As you say, the image quality is rather low resolution.

Please can you obtain the 'image address' from your original internet source?

 

[thehangingtree]

Thanks Foggy, it does indeed resemble Alice, although I cannot make a positive identification at this stage.
As you say, the image quality is rather low resolution.

Please can you obtain the 'image address' from your original internet source?

I don't think she is....

 

[foggybottom]

I don't think she is....

Thanks for reply Bob but I don't recall where it came from other than a page of assorted images and I really hadn't looked at it closely until lately when I thought it resembled Alice. Just not enough definition to tell, blowing it up only makes it more unclear.

 

[bobinder]

thought it resembled Alice. Just not enough definition to tell, blowing it up only makes it more unclear.

I don't think she is....

Thanks Foggy, here is a hi-res version of the picture.
As far as I am aware, Alice posed for fifteen outdoor series and none of them was archery-themed.
The figure proportions are correct for Alice, but if it was her, it would have to be a manipulation.
Whilst similar in appearance, I tend to believe this is somebody else.

​

 

[Jollyrei]

Thanks for reply Bob but I don't recall where it came from other than a page of assorted images and I really hadn't looked at it closely until lately when I thought it resembled Alice. Just not enough definition to tell, blowing it up only makes it more unclear.

Thanks Foggy, here is a hi-res version of the picture.
As far as I am aware, Alice posed for fifteen outdoor series and none of them was archery-themed.
The figure proportions are correct for Alice, but if it was her, it would have to be a manipulation.
Whilst similar in appearance, I tend to believe this is somebody else.

View attachment 727343​

She is very similar, but the hi-res version of the image shows her face much more clearly, and to my eye, this is not Alice. The smile and something about the eyes is not the same. The similarity may simply be related to the casting type, or body type preference of the photographer - if Alice is considered cute, beautiful, pretty, or whatever, it is likely that other girls with that body type will also be considered for modelling.

Nice find, in any case.

 

[foggybottom]

Thanks Foggy, here is a hi-res version of the picture.
As far as I am aware, Alice posed for fifteen outdoor series and none of them was archery-themed.
The figure proportions are correct for Alice, but if it was her, it would have to be a manipulation.
Whilst similar in appearance, I tend to believe this is somebody else.

View attachment 727343​

Thanks for the hi-res pic Bob, you didn't perchance happen to find the rest of this shoot, I would like to know who this young lady is.

 

[bobinder]

I thought it resembled Alice. Just not enough definition to tell, blowing it up only makes it more unclear.

She is very similar, but the hi-res version of the image shows her face much more clearly, and to my eye, this is not Alice. The smile and something about the eyes is not the same. The similarity may simply be related to the casting type, or body type preference of the photographer - if Alice is considered cute, beautiful, pretty, or whatever, it is likely that other girls with that body type will also be considered for modelling.

Nice find, in any case.

Thanks for the hi-res pic Bob, you didn't perchance happen to find the rest of this shoot, I would like to know who this young lady is.

Sorry, Foggy - I did not find any more pictures from a series, and it may be just a single image. Although...

Here is another example of the picture, in which the identity of the archer can be positively confirmed as Alice -

​

A comparison of the faces reveals the similarities and differences between the two models -

​

Alice has a subtle, cleft chin, which is often a deciding factor in matters of identification.

 

[foggybottom]

Thanks again Bob, I see Alice also has the more oval face too, if I may ask how did you find the better pic, Tin-Eye or something similar?