Horseback Bow?

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I could be wrong, but that seems contrary to the facts of Japanese samurai archery.

For me a "Long Bow" is a thing from Wales. To be perfectly honest, other than knowing they exist and having seen some demonstrations of them, I know positively nothing about the Japanese (China, Korea, Taiwan, etc) bows.

Horse bow to me is something like the mogolian ones that are generally represented around 48" and I think they were composite as well, an English Long Bow is 70+inches.

So you could be correct. I do not believe they are referred to as Long Bows. But its far enough outside of my expertise that short of being specific about the region, time and genre I will default to what I would practice at my table, based on my experiences.

btw I should say "I have tried something similar to this at my archery club. A saddle mounted on a pivot being rocked by someone whose behind you some distance. I cant hit crap in this situation, and that's on a range without an actual horse head near the field of fire and without the targets changing distance or location. " It was a just for fun thing, but lemme tell ya... after that experience I definitely impose full penalties on mounted archers in any kind of 'realistic' game setting. Oh and I was only able to make it work at all using a 40inch youth bow. I would be very skeptical of anyone using anything more than a short bow.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by bocephus

For me a "Long Bow" is a thing from Wales. To be perfectly honest, other than knowing they exist and having seen some demonstrations of them, I know positively nothing about the Japanese (China, Korea, Taiwan, etc) bows.

Horse bow to me is something like the mogolian ones that are generally represented around 48" and I think they were composite as well, an English Long Bow is 70+inches.

So you could be correct. I do not believe they are referred to as Long Bows. But its far enough outside of my expertise that short of being specific about the region, time and genre I will default to what I would practice at my table, based on my experiences.

They are, in fact, referred to as longbows (at least sometimes, obviously that's not the original name) and more than 2 meters long...though I am not completely sure that those particular Japanese bows are the ones used on horseback.

Originally Posted by bocephus

btw I should say "I have tried something similar to this at my archery club. A saddle mounted on a pivot being rocked by someone whose behind you some distance. I cant hit crap in this situation, and that's on a range without an actual horse head near the field of fire and without the targets changing distance or location. " It was a just for fun thing, but lemme tell ya... after that experience I definitely impose full penalties on mounted archers in any kind of 'realistic' game setting. Oh and I was only able to make it work at all using a 40inch youth bow. I would be very skeptical of anyone using anything more than a short bow.

Real world testing is cool...but note that the Basic rule is that mounted archery uses the worse of Riding and Archery. And that's before looking for any further penalties. So if you don't have Riding to begin with, completely ineffectual is the expected result.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

They are, in fact, referred to as longbows (at least sometimes, obviously that's not the original name) and more than 2 meters long...though I am not completely sure that those particular Japanese bows are the ones used on horseback.

Real world testing is cool...but note that the Basic rule is that mounted archery uses the worse of Riding and Archery. And that's before looking for any further penalties. So if you don't have Riding to begin with, completely ineffectual is the expected result.

Parthian archers were the Persian equivalents of knights, for their day. They started to ride as small children, and to shoot as soon as they could draw a child's bow.
As the sons of wealthy families, the Parthian archers had spent 10 years doing both, by the time they reached their late teens.

The Mongols, whom the Samurai patterned their horse archery after, rode before they could walk.

The samurai, themselves, trained their whole lives.

So, yeah. Nobody not born into that life would ever get any better than mediocre.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

They are, in fact, referred to as longbows (at least sometimes, obviously that's not the original name) and more than 2 meters long...though I am not completely sure that those particular Japanese bows are the ones used on horseback .

No, that class of bows was, as far as I know, used by specially trained foot troops. People in earlier times were shorter and the horsebow therefore too. I watched some historical docus, and the unstrung japanese horsebow was around the size of the archer, with the grip at 1/3 that makes it barely useful on a horse.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Crossbows include a stirrup to assist in loading, so you can probaby reload it on horseback without any issues as long as the horse is not moving faster than a walk. It would be amusingly difficult while galloping away from the enemy, a -4 to Riding rolls and any Fast-Draw rolls. Of course, shooting at an enemy behind you while on a galloping horse is quite difficult, so you need to be exceptional anyway.

Crossbows for use on horseback, never used a stirrup, the common reloading method was bracing the butt against saddle or belly and pulling the string back with the arms. Even if you can stay mounted while using the crossbows stirrup, you would need at least a riding roll to stay in balance, and to make full use of the crossbows stirrup you need both arms, what is really difficult, even if the horse is walking. Mechanical reloading help like a winch is complete impossible. The typical combat method was riding towards emeny, fire the bolt, retreat, reload and again. Since a still standing rider is a nice target.