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



Periodic Electrical Installation Inspection – What to Inspect?

This is the second post in a series of two on periodic electrical inspections. In the first post, I discussed how often inspections should be carried out...

Resistors

Resistors are electronic components that oppose the flow of current.  Manufactured in various types and ranges they have a wide application to electronics...

Voltage Drop in Installations - Concepts

Problems on achieving maximum voltage drop within an installation come up often. Depending where you live, local regulations will have different limits...

myElectrical - Cable Sizing Tool Upgrade

Our IEE cable sizing was wrote a few years ago and had become rough around the edges. I thought it was time to give the tool a service. Unfortunately when...

Fault Calculation - Symmetrical Components

For unbalance conditions the calculation of fault currents is more complex. One method of dealing with this is symmetrical components. Using symmetrical...

Batteries

A battery consists of one or more cells, each of which use stored chemical energy to produce electrical energy, There are many types of cells and these...

HTML Symbol Entities

HTML supports a variety of entity symbols which can be entered using either numbers or an entity name.  The number or name is preceded by the ‘&’ sign...

Large Hadron Collider

The 27 km, Euro 6 billion  Collider lies on the border between France and Switzerland, took nearly 30 years to complete.  Some of the lofty goals for the...

E-Ink

Before the technical, some general information. E-ink display are found in a lot of e-readers, some mobile phones and similar devices and the intent is...

Electromagnetic Fields - Exposure Limits

Exposure to time varying magnetic fields, from power frequencies to the gigahertz range can have harmful consequences.  A lot of research has been conducted...

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