I just learned that from Artilleryman Sheldonore. I concur.
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Recently, I read in an Archaeology Blog about ancient arrows retrieved from a melting glacier in Norway.
In general, WoW is way too cartoonized for folks to appreciate the true lethality of an Ancient Arrow when looked upon from close range.
I was taken by surprise and literally shocked at how lethal this real 2500 year old arrow and tip looked.
Reflecting on the scenery where it was found, a barren rocky wasteland at the foot of a glacier, I started to imagine what would have happened if I lived at the time and happened to pass by this area armed by my two swords and leather armor.
A skilled archer, such as those Ancient Vikinger archers, would have effortlessly killed me if he caught me in the open because there was no place to hide and the ground was too rocky to run fast or charge.
It is really easy for 10 year old Kung Fu Panda and Pokemon fans in WoW to trivialize Ancient Weapons but this would never happen IRL. IRL an Archer would have been a LETHAL FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH and one from whom even silly people would RUN AWAY FROM because they’d know he has the power to EASILY end them without them managing to do anything about it.
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That’s literally we used the round shields
I have done archery and one of the first things any good club will teach is that the bow is a weapon and an arrow can kill, even light weight practice bows and bullet headed arrows can make a mess of someone if they hit them, which is why the rules at the range are just as tight as for a firearms range.
When you get onto the older type of arrows it gets even scarier, instead of nice bullet shaped heads you have ones that are designed to go in and not come out, ones that are designed to make you bleed to death and ones that are designed to penetrate arrmor, Then you have the archers in war who don’t have their arrows in a quiver they put them in the ground in front of them, bend down and knock an arrow on the string, pull the bow as you stand up and loose the arrow, bend down to knock the next arrow. The speed they could shoot at was incredible, they didn’t need to carefully aim as all they had to try and hit was that big block of infantry men in front of them.
Never underestimate what a bow and arrow can do. However as far as WoW goes a bow has one big advantage which is the reason even my Dwarf hunter uses one, I can’t stand the noise from the guns.
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This is a great video testing arrows versus armour. Both of the same period, 14th/15th century. Totally agree on the gun sound issue though, I much prefer bows.
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Agreed. Melee hunter all the way.
The Two Fingered Salute harks back to English Longbow Men who would show them to the enemy
This was because English Archers who were captured had their fingers cut off
There are few more weapons as deadly as a well used bow and arrow
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Using a bow required a relative high skill, where as a crossbow did not - with the added benefit that it actually could punch through plate mail.
I’d argue that the cross bow is a more deadly weapon in that it requires little to no skill to use.
Some of these old arrows are just plain sadistic…
With some real nasty ones you got a wound that would never heal again.
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Id say, more importantly war bows require a lot of strength while crossbows dont.
The disadvantage being the quite short range of crossbows, and the inability to use them for volley fire (we’ve all seen it in the movies - Hundreds of archers aim upward and release arrows into the sky which fall like rain onto a converging army).
Crossbows also had notoriously cranky maintenance, were prone to jam - but perhaps worst of all they were extremely slow to reload. The first bolt absolutely had to hit it’s target, as you’d never get off a second shot against an armed opponent.
This is not accurate, crossbow bolts, due to the size and weight distrubution had equally problems penetrating Plate mail, especially one with a gamebon worn over. The only mess they made was against lighter armored targets.
Arrows and bolts were predominantly used against lightarmored targets, of which the majority of an army consists of. Only the most wealthy knights could afford a full set of plate or chain mail.
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Not true. That’s an urban legend. They’re actually meant to represent horns, although I’m not sure I should go into what the horns represent…
Look at this and say once again that arrows are for sissies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk
… you took that serious?
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Not the best example. Trick shooting with a super light bow may look cool, but has nothing to do with warfare.
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This.
Lars is great and very skilled performer, but that bow is so weak that any armor would stop those arrows, even thick winter clothes would be enough if he shot you farther than 20 or 30 meters.
Regarding the strength needed to draw an English/Welsh Long Yew Bow:
The Mary Rose was an English Tudorian War Galleon. She capsized and sank in 1545 because she was overloaded.
When she sank, she had aboard a complement of English or Welsh Archers armed with Yew Longbows.
The National Geographic mag reported than the British authorities examined in detail the skeletal remains of the dead British archers. The same mag ran a detailed report on the findings of the British anthropologists.
It was found that the right arm bone of the English/Welsh Archers was elongated (longer than normal) through many years of practising archery with the Yew Longbow. They also calculated that the Archers were extremely strong, particularly with respect to the musculature on the right side of their body that was responsible for drawing the English/Welsh Yew Longbow.
The closest approximation of the English/Welsh Yew Longbow in Warcraft is Rhok’delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers.
One would have to be anything but a sissy to draw the English/Welsh Yew Longbow in combat.
(Of course a Scotsman or a Scottish dwarf would beg to differ because reasons).
What.
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in Eire they call them the “Little People”. I am sure there’s something analogous in Scottish folklore. After all, they came from Ireland.