How far can ancient bows and arrows shoot?

China has long had the concept of maximum range and effective range. Judging from the bow species dropped in Song Dynasty, the maximum range of the bow is generally about 200 meters, and the effective range is within 120 meters. In other words, the effective exchange distance between the two sides after the real battle formation is 100 meters.

Then there is the individual crossbow. Although the various data records of individual crossbows are very large, they are generally used in actual combat. According to the current artifacts and pictures, it is difficult to confirm the maximum range of 300 steps and 500 steps in practice, and it is good to shoot accurately at a distance of 100 steps 150 meters at most. Take Li Yinglin's atlas as an example.

The double-arm crossbow can basically be regarded as the standard posture of crossbow shooting in Song Dynasty. Therefore, when discussing crossbow shooting recently, a military forum mentioned that there are only three shots in front of the enemy, the engagement distance will not exceed 100 meter, and the crossbow is close to flat shooting instead of projectile. This is basically based on certain facts. Riding and shooting are more complicated. In fact, there are many ways to use cavalry clusters. For example, one is the configuration of light and heavy armor, in which the light armor cavalry shoots arrows in front and the heavy armor cavalry charges behind to bring up the rear, which basically belongs to the way cavalry deal with cavalry; The second is that the heavy armor cavalry acts as a meat shield in front, and the light armor (or chain mail cavalry) projects from a long distance behind, which basically belongs to the way the cavalry deals with the infantry phalanx; There are more and more complicated configurations, so I won't elaborate here, and the shooting methods used are different. For example, some people say that cavalry can shoot arrows at a close distance of 20 meters, which is correct, because this is the shooting method under the first configuration condition; For example, some people say that it is correct for cavalry to shoot arrows at a distance of 100 meters, because it belongs to the shooting mode under the second configuration condition.

In addition, the so-called bird shooting, traditional bows and arrows can be completely realized. In fact, we should not overestimate the flying height of birds. Many carnivorous birds actually fly at low altitude. The real difficulty is to predict the flight path of these birds, because low-altitude birds are generally flexible.

Finally, don't think it is so short and frustrating to exchange fire with cold weapons within150m or even100m. Even in modern wars, the general exchange distance of light weapons does not exceed 250 meters, which only improves the firepower density and accuracy. A large number of ancient and modern light weapons battles are basically carried out within a distance of about 50 meters or even shorter.