Bows and Arrows 

By on

Longbow manAll work and no play makes Jack a dull boy sums up today's feeling. Volts, motors and cables are all very well, but every now and again we need a change. Today's change of topic is the longbow.

It starts with me reading one of the Horrible History books with my son (Groovy Greeks). Arrows were mentioned which lead to the discussion of the bodkin arrow head. To show him how much work was required to make one of these arrow head I started searching videos on Google and YouTube. During this process we came across the following interesting documentary on the longbow as a weapon. Being a history video which was able to keep my eight year olds son attention for nearly an hour, I think it deserves a bit of publicity.

 

 

In addition to the above a couple of other interesting videos we found:

  • How to make a bodkin arrow - a black smith making a bodkin arrow head. Good to Illustrate that these didn't grow on trees but had to be made by hard work.
  • Medieval arrow making - interesting video on the making of an arrow. While these do sort of grow on trees and the video uses not very medieval methods, it does show that to make an arrow is more time consuming/complex then most people would realize.

A few final bits of information:

Using a longbow required great muscles in the upper body (not just the arms) and the arrow was aimed by looking at the target, not down the arrow.  To develop these muscles and skills the best  archers would start training from the age of seven.

If you like reading I can recommend Azincourt  by Bernard Cornwell .  Good historical faction related to the longbow and the men who wielded them.

Imagine being at the battle of Crecy  (26 August 1346)  where the English had around 7000 longbow men.   A skilled longbow man could release 10 to 12 arrows per minute - that’s a rain of up to 70,000 arrows per minute on the attacking French.   Not something I would want to run into. 

 



Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus



8 Steps to Low Voltage Power Cable Selection and Sizing

A recurring theme on our forums is cable sizing. Now many installations are unique and require special consideration. However, a lot of the time things...

Fire Resistant and Fire Retardant Cables

Fire resistant and fire retardant cable sheaths are design to resist combustion and limit the propagation of flames. Low smokes cables have a sheath designed...

Hazardous Areas – IEC and NEC/CEC Comparison

Depending where in the world you work, you are likely following one of two standards International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) National...

Operational Amplifier

The fundamental component of any analogue computer is the operational amplifier, or op amp. An operational amplifier (often called an op-amp,) is a high...

IEC 60287 Current Capacity of Cables - An Introduction

IEC 60287 "Calculation of the continuous current rating of cables (100% load factor)" is the International Standard which defines the procedures and equations...

The ac resistance of conductors

In a previous article I looked at the dc resistance of conductors and in this article we turn our attention to ac resistance. If you have not read the...

IEC 61439 Verification Methods

The (relatively new) switchgear and control gear standard, IEC 61439 'Low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies' has three methods which can be...

UPS Battery Sizing

Various techniques exist to enable the correct selection of batteries for UPS applications.  The procedure described below is one of the more common. ...

Equipment Verification (to IEC Standards)

One of the requirements to ensuring that everything works is to have equipment selected, manufactured and verified [tested] to IEC standards. Not all equipment...

What is Aircraft Ground Power

Ever wondered what kind of power an aircraft uses when parked at the airport stand. Normally the aircraft generates it own power, but when parked with...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note