Typical ST for a war bow?
 

I'm going through the Deadly Spring spreadsheet, and I'm wondering what a typical ST for a typical war bow would be. I wondering about both for highly trained archers, and for average training archers. Apparently it's possible to produce really good reflex bows, and I'm wondering what ST I should use.

Probably a lower ST one for soldiers only parts of who's training is archery, and higher ST one for troops who're specialized, experience archers?

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

This is a matter of technical jargon, but when they talk about english warbows, they usually mean "stronger than 100lbs."

Reconstructions to actual dimensions for the bows recovered from the sunken vessel Mary Rose showed draw strengths for those (hundreds of) bows varied from about 120-185 lbs.

Very strong Mongol horn bows could be 160# draw. I recall most japanese bows were less - 50-100lbs, but I don't have a great source for that in history.

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

As you have capitalized "ST" I'm going to assume you mean the GURPS stat rather than real world draw weight.

Common soldiers will have ST of 10 or 11. Elite archers are trickier as Arm ST comes into play but anything less than a virtual PC will not go higher than (probably) a 13, including Arm ST.

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

Yeah, sorry, I forgot to translate.

98# bow is ST 14
128# bow is ST 16
144# bow is ST 17
180# bow is ST 19

Bow draw = 0.5 x ST^2

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

Unless you aren't counting Strongbow, the archers on the Merry Rose would all have been stronger that that. That's a pretty big PC party...

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

Sooo, ST 14 / 98lb draw strength for well-trained soldiers not specializing in archery (although trained it, they're trained in melee combat just as much), and maybe ST16 / 128 lb for well trained archers? Maybe going on ST17 / 144lb?
The bows are drawn past the cheek, so that would (I assume?) lower the high end some.

Because I've designed a ST 16 bow with a (realistic) damage of 1d+3, and a ST 17 bow with a (realistic) damage of 2d. Reflex composite bows, limited to European wood. That's a big difference when it comes to the level of armor it can penetrate.

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

I assume the high ST bows are firing appropriately heavy arrows (0.15 to 0.25 lbs), but yeah, that poundage of bow will do some impressive penetration if mated to a hard forged arrowhead. Note that even your big monster won't punch through 3mm (3 x 2.75 = DR 8.25) of plate assuming armor as good in quality as RHA (which is neither good nor bad as far as armor steel goes). If you want "realistc" penetratio results, you'll want to think of DR as "dice of protection," and 3mm of good steel would be about 2d+1.

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

One thing I do is allow Archers to leverage their Skill in order to use heavier bows.

I basically allow a roll against Bow skill. Success with MoS x 5% as an increase on Basic lift for calculating Pull. No success means no additional benefit.

This means that a good bowmen can draw quicker (in one turn not two for bows that would be otherwise over that particular threshold) and can draw bows heavier than than their ST alone would allow.

It is another roll though, so I also allow people to "take 11" which is to assume that rolled 11 and calculate a set bonus from there. e.g a Skill 14 bowman could apply an extra 15% on his BL without bothering to roll.


I like this because it makes the point that years of training on bow helped develop the very specific action of drawing a bow (and I also use Strong bow perk and lifting ST) and it fits the whole "to get good archer start with the grand father" meme where years of very specific training we needed to get to point where heavy war bows fired six accurate volleys per minute. I'd probably limit it to archers who have specifically trained to pull heavy war bows.

I also like that it means there is more of grey area between yes you can draw that bow as much as you like, and no you can't draw that bow at all. As Bowmen trying to draw a bow requiring several success will be gambling on making a roll by enough each time they draw. (you could get into firing bows at less than full power)

Ultimately it's the same theory behind trained ST bonuses (and Trained St would probably be quicker and easier)

Oh and I use the realistic bow damage setting in DS

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

Typical draw weights amongst bows used in war can range from 50 to 180 pounds. Some archery traditions emphasized draw weight, others rate of fire or accuracy or range or ... In GURPS terms, that would probably be ST 10 to ST 17+.

Re: Typical ST for a war bow?
 

I do something similar to Tomsdad, but with less randomness.

If you know the Bow skill at a level equal to your effective ST for pulling bows (so it includes Strongbow and the like) you get +1 to your effective draw ST, +2 to effective draw ST if your skill is at Draw ST +1 or higher.

So an archer with ST 10 and no other modifiers and Bow 10 would have an effective draw ST of 11.

An archer of ST 14 and 2 levels of Strongbow would need a bow skill of 16 to get a bonus of +1 and 17+ to get +2.