"The White Company"

[RobD]

i love longbows, real deal classic american flat longbows - "hill style" - and recently lucked into one, a hill big 5.  gone are the dayze of pulling 60 or 65 pounds, now it's 45 pounds on a good day, but at least i can pull string and fly shafts ... so far! 

[Uncle Russ]

But the truth is I do not like the crossbow. It is an ugly and ungainly machine that has none of the grace of a bow and needs none of the skill required either. I use my crossbow because it allows me another month to be in the woods and attempt to fill my freezer. But, I long for the days when I was fit enough to pull back a real bow.

Tremendous wisdom right there!

The sad part of this is none of us are really ready for it when it happens.
Drawing a bow is something many have us have been doing since we are kids, but all at once we can no longer get a smooth draw on the same longbow we have shot and loved for years.
We look for ways around this little problem, but life is just not the same without that longbow.

[Puffer]

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2016/01/23/medieval-weapons-the-english-longbow/

[RobD]

An English knight named William De Braose claimed an arrow “had penetrated his chain mail and clothing, passed through his thigh and saddle and finally entered his horse.”

highly unlikely given the results of current era testing of chain mail struck with period correct bodkin points powered by period correct longbows.  at best, if the distance was really close, the bodkin might have opened up or slightly passed through a knight's chain mail.

When a bowman could strike down a squirrel at 100 paces, he was judged proficient enough to enlist in the army.

that sort of archery rhetoric is sprinkled throughout "the white company" and is far more wishful thinking than fact ... even for a howard hill.

surviving writings of those long ago centuries dictate that archers were by and large considered less a soldier and in fact inferior since there was no face-to-face conflict with the enemy as it appears that chivalry was an important element in warfare.

[Winter Hawk]

It is an ugly and ungainly machine that has none of the grace of a bow and needs none of the skill required either.

From what I remember (not always accurate!) William Tell shot the apple off his son's head with a crossbow.  Distance is not known.

~Kees~

[PetahW]

From what I remember (not always accurate!) William Tell shot the apple off his son's head with a crossbow.  Distance is not known.

~Kees~

Didn't Wild Bill Hickock shoot Davis Tutt with a bow & arrow ?