Author Topic: Ridiculously fast archery?  (Read 3437 times)

Jubal

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Ridiculously fast archery?
« on: January 26, 2015, 05:10:07 PM »
Basically what it says on the tin, but also looking at the historical background to techniques that allow very fast shooting:

I'm not sure how powerful a lot of his shots are in this, and bear in mind that the level of training being discussed here is definitely something for the very crème de la crème of archers, as opposed to the conscripts who made up most archery forces in the middle ages. But it's certainly interesting and does go to show how fast the firing rate of a bow can be - a speed that firearms couldn't really match until the nineteenth century.
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Tom

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Re: Ridiculously fast archery?
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2015, 07:42:58 PM »
I thought I saw a thread on /r/askhistorians about this guy, I can't find it right now though. A lot of the people on there were saying that a lot of his claims are a bit silly like the lack of a quiver and such. Also, surely most archers wouldn't be sprinting around and trick shotting people, they'd be in a formation probably firing volleys where it doesn't matter too much about rate of fire as long as you keep discipline and fire at the same rate as everyone else. I think his style of shooting would seem to suit competitions quite well but I don't really know too much about archery so can't pass too much judgement. It's cool though.

Glaurung

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Re: Ridiculously fast archery?
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2015, 10:23:03 PM »
And here's an article that works through the video and demolishes many of the claims in it. The upshot seems to be that Lars Andersen is very fast but not accurate, especially over more than a few metres, and that some of the more exciting shots might not be all that they appear to be.

Jubal

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Re: Ridiculously fast archery?
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2015, 11:26:16 PM »
Well, that was brutal :P But interesting, certainly :)
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Gen_Glory

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Re: Ridiculously fast archery?
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2015, 11:54:51 AM »
My archery club went a bit crazy over this
Most of them deriding the fact that new members will want to try it, and a lot of the competition archers being very snooty about it.
The ones who shoot hunting/short bows found it cool but they agree the video uses a lot of editing and trickery.

Archery in general is full of divisions based on your shooting style, you have those who view compound and sighted bows as cheating and those that refuse anything but a longbow. Kinda abrasive for anyone starting out.

This style is also pointless with anything other than a short bow or a mongol bow, though seeing someone do it with a longbow would be awesome if impossible.
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dubsartur

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Re: Ridiculously fast archery?
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2019, 06:06:36 PM »
Yes, that video and the 'skeptical rebuttal' video which was circulating left me saying "a plague on both your houses!"  I tried to put some information about the diverse styles of real historical archery in my post on Roman Archery from 2015.  Chris Verwijmeren's blog is good, even though I hate the name "warbow" for reasons I want to explain in another post (the people shooting replicas of medieval longbows use the name "warbow" to distinguish themselves from the people shooting 18th century sports longbows who call their sport "longbow", but in other cultures the bows brought to war were nothing like the inch thick monstrosities shooting quarter-pound arrows from the Mary Rose ... as far as I am concerned a war bow is a bow which was commonly used in war, not a particular style of longbow). 

I have more posts on archery.

Phoenixguard09

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Re: Ridiculously fast archery?
« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2020, 11:26:12 PM »
Dubsartur, I've fallen down the rabbit-hole of your blog mate. There is some fascinating material over there, and I can't believe I hadn't found it sooner.

Currently reading the McLeod paper on the Vergina tombs at the moment, which I would not have even known about had it not been for following your link.

On the Lars Andersen video, I will offer only that there were almost as many archery traditions around the world as their were human cultures, and that dismissing the technique he shows as being historically inaccurate or, worse, 'not proper archery' is just wilful ignorance of the sheer variety of techniques history shows us.

Also, as Gen_Glory mentioned, many archery clubs have a tendency to attract members with an elitist mind-set, which is not conducive to any real discourse on the subject.
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