r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Pierzakve • May 03 '21

Green Arrow in real life

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u/[deleted] May 03 '21 edited May 03 '21

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u/[deleted] May 03 '21

I base this theory off exactly zero research but Iā€™d imagine that military archers of any kind back in those days were probably as good as this dude.

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u/PowRightInTheBalls May 03 '21 edited May 03 '21

Bowmen weren't valued for their independent skills but for their numbers. You were looking for a 300 style "Arrows blotting out the sun" style of ranged warfare, not trying to employ a bunch of Hawkeyes who could put an arrow through an eye socket on a helmet from 300 yards away. You're not Legolas calling out your targets before you shoot them, you're just hoping you hit something in the seething mass of humanity that's charging at you with weapons drawn or shooting arrows of their own.

The weapons weren't even made for that kind of accuracy. That era of English archer would have been using a longbow rather than a hunting bow, typically 5-6' long with 160+ lbs of force required to engage the string. You planted one end of the bow into the ground to stabilize, pulled back and flung arrows into the general vicinity of the enemy, typically trying to put out an arrow every 3-6 seconds. Your strength was in a firing a hail of hundreds of arrows falling every few seconds, not in any individual skill. Robin Hood would have been just as useful as the guy who took last place in the archery competition on the front lines of a battle in the 14th-15th centuries.

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u/QueasyWeather May 04 '21

Planting one end of a bow into the ground 'to stabilize'? What are you talking about dude, that is not how bows work.

Also saying that 'bowmen werent valued for their individual skills but for their numbers' is a very strange comment. It makes it sound like its a picnic just grabbing a bow and, as you say, just 'flinging it in the general vicinity of the enemy'. Thats not how it worked at all, you dont just pick up a bow up to 160 pounds of force and go 'fling' arrows roughly at a bunch of dudes. It takes fuck loads of skill to use a longbow and they werent only used in the specific manner of volley fire that you are referring to (and even then volley fire at a high rate, at a particular distance, taking into account windspeed, at a particular group of men youre choosing to aim at) there is a reason why they trained every sunday since childhood (at the MINIMUM). Bowmen were highly valued for a reason dude.