We're (not) gonna have to adjust Bow ROFs

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Do you have any thoughts on how a device like Low-Tech's panjagan might work given this?

No I don't have a clue, which is why I was uncomfortable with this interpretation. There is a wacky illustration in one of the Osprey books that looks like a bizarre crossbow.

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps8cf2837b.jpg

Don't blame McBride; he just drew what the author told him.

[vierasmarius]

I'd have it shave off one second from each shot (not compatible with Fast Draw). It should probably also carry a skill and/or Acc penalty for the extra bulk and complexity.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I'd have it shave off one second from each shot (not compatible with Fast Draw). It should probably also carry a skill and/or Acc penalty for the extra bulk and complexity.

It isn't a device. It is a technique. They would have held the arrows in their hand just like Lars does.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

No I don't have a clue, which is why I was uncomfortable with this interpretation.

Alright.

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I'd have it shave off one second from each shot (not compatible with Fast Draw). It should probably also carry a skill and/or Acc penalty for the extra bulk and complexity.

For the Low-Tech device? That doesn't make any sense at all. It wouldn't make you shoot faster just more arrows at once.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

It isn't a device. It is a technique. They would have held the arrows in their hand just like Lars does.

Who is this addressed to?

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Who is this addressed to?

Fixed, above.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Mr Frost

Longbowmen weren't peasants , they were the equivalent of middle class wealthy enough to afford their own war gear.

In mediaeval England peasants were legally obliged to own longbows and to train with them weekly. Also, football, handball, and hockey were banned lest they should interfere with peasants' archery practice.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

In mediaeval England peasants were legally obliged to own longbows and to train with them weekly. Also, football, handball, and hockey were banned lest they should interfere with peasants' archery practice.

I have trouble believing those were ever really enforced. I'd bet they were more public image and not really tenable policies.
Like how jaywalking is technically illegal but almost never enforced, and when it is people go bonkers with indignation.

[gruundehn]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

In mediaeval England peasants were legally obliged to own longbows and to train with them weekly. Also, football, handball, and hockey were banned lest they should interfere with peasants' archery practice.

This was required of yeomen, a type or class of peasant. Just like Great Danes are a type of dog. Yeomen were the upper class of peasants and especially during the Hundred years Wars they often became professional soldiers. There is a very good book out Bowmen of England by Donald Featherstone which should clear this point up.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by gruundehn

This was required of yeomen, a type or class of peasant. Just like Great Danes are a type of dog. Yeomen were the upper class of peasants and especially during the Hundred years Wars they often became professional soldiers. There is a very good book out Bowmen of England by Donald Featherstone which should clear this point up.

Featherstone's book is seriously outdated and he was a huge plagiarist. I found a two-page block of text that was copied virtually word for word from Oakeshott's Archaeology of Weapons. How much of the rest of his book is other people's work? I wouldn't recommend anything that he has written. Strickland and Hardy's work is the best book on the subject. Bradbury's isn't too bad either.

[Mr Frost]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I have trouble believing those were ever really enforced. I'd bet they were more public image and not really tenable policies.
Like how jaywalking is technically illegal but almost never enforced, and when it is people go bonkers with indignation.

Not just that ; consider the logistics .

Sane estimates of English population at the time of the Doomsday Book when the country was recovering from various wars on their soil and the Kings' very recent genocide in Northumbria is notably more than 1 million and the consensus seems to be that by the time of those supposed laws had risen to several times that of 1086 AD {about 5 million in the 13 Century} .

The vast majority of the population was common {ie not noble} and most would have been subject to it , but lets say that only 1,000,000 were peasants and only 10% of those adult males fit to serve : where are the period writings mentioning the 100,000 trained and equipped Longbowmen of ye merrye olde englande {where they have a plague of Es} , let alone several hundred thousand that such law would have actually created ? Surely the French would have noted how England was invulnerable because that many actual longbowmen would have made it so until the advent of French Ordinance .

Where is that even one battle where the English King hits the scene with 50,000 bowmen {or more} because He felt He should nuke the site from orbit just to be sure ?

How in every hell ever preached about including the Chinese ones did they afford it ? Making a Longbow isn't a trivial affair and consequently they were at least a bit expensive and then there is the other kit that goes with them and all that before we consider the logistical nightmare of making enough arrows for hundreds of thousands of longbowmen to practise with religiously each day and still have wararrows each enough to fight a battle with and raise families and support those hideously expensive nobles etc ... If England had been that rich , it could have practically bought Europe .


Assuming the law even existed , it clearly was not enforced !