Archers had the advantage of being able to attack their opponents from a distance, lessening the chance of themselves facing injury. However, while these forces proved effective, the development of the longbow nearly 700 years ago rendered the original bow and arrow a trifle. The longbow, developed in Wales, but quickly becoming adopted by the English, was much longer than the original arrow at 6 feet. Achieving accurate hits required a stupendous amount of upper body strength, and training of upwards to 10 years. These longbowmen could hit distances from 50 to 250 yards, and they designed special arrowheads for bringing down horses or piercing armour for example. An effective longbowmen could shoot 10 to 12 arrows a minute, emerging as the world's first "machine gun." The longbow gave England a tactical advantage for many years until the creation of the crossbow, which while only covering shorter distances, had more power behind its force and appeared more machine like. These delicate weapons were a prelude to modern guns, obtaining the idea of shooting damaging materials while maintaining your distance from the enemy.
militaryfactory.com. "Brief History of the Crossbow". 1 Jun. 2009. http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/medieval-longbow.aspcivil.
I find that technology such as the longbow is actually more of an art form than anything else. The fact that it takes upwards of ten years for someone to be able to to be accurate with the weapon is very similar to the way a musician may need years of training to be acceptable at playing their instrument. It isn't something that you can simply pick up in a weekend of training.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting because when comparing an actual machine gun to this machine gun, the bow and arrow seems so much less threatening. But, when you really think about it, the arrow head was designed to be more painfull coming out than it was going in. Thats gruesome.
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