How far can archers shoot their arrows in ancient wars?

In the era of cold weapons, bows and arrows are terrible long-range deadly weapons. The farther the range, the stronger the penetration and the greater the power of the bow and arrow.

In ancient times, in order to enhance the range and power of bows and arrows, there were two main ideas, one was the British single longbow, and the other was the technique of anti-curved compound bow used by China since the Han Dynasty. Which has longer range and greater power?

First of all, let's look at the single longbow in Britain.

The single longbow in Britain is simple to make, the bow body is made of single wood, and the technology is relatively simple. Because the elasticity and energy storage density of the English longbow are unchanged, the only way to improve the range and power is to increase the pulling distance, so the length of the longbow must be increased. Therefore, the traditional longbow in Britain is almost as high as 1 person, and the length of modern restored longbow in Britain is about1.78m..

▲ English longbow comparable to human height.

The British longbow uses a 45-degree projectile to kill the enemy through its long range and gravity when the bow and arrow fall.

By measuring the speed of the restored English longbow, it is known that the tension of the English longbow is 80 kg, about 70 kg, the highest arrow speed can reach 38 meters per second, the range is about 200 meters when shooting horizontally, the projectile is at a 45-degree angle, and the downwind is about 360 meters.

Let's take a look at recurve bow in China.

China people can be said to be at the forefront of the world in increasing the range and power of bows. China people improved the manufacturing technology of bows and used various materials to enhance their elasticity and energy storage density.

Firstly, high-quality bamboo is selected as the arch tire, evenly split into four pieces, each piece is corrected to be 5cm wide, and baked and inactivated on charcoal fire. Then it is made into a tip and attached to the bow body by grinding the angle to increase the resilience of the bow arm. Finally, assemble the tire and glue it with fish foam. Finally, the whole bow and horn are coated with glue, dried and brushed again, and repeated at least 20 times.

▲ China's anti-curved compound bow

In addition, China also adopted the anti-bending design for the compound bow, that is, the bow arm bends in the opposite direction to the chord. After the bow is wound, the bow arm moves to the arrow seat, and after the arrow is released, the bow arm string vibrates faster, making the arrow more powerful.

Through the actual measurement, taking the bow cleaning with the bow length of 1.52m as an example, the pulling force is about 80kg, the maximum arrow speed can reach 43.9m per second, the horizontal shooting is about 250m, the projectile is fired at a 45-degree angle, and the downwind is about 400m m..

Therefore, in ancient wars, archers' bows and arrows ranged as far as 360 meters to 400 meters.

Second question, why do you always feel that it takes a long time for cavalry to rush to the vicinity of archers?

In the early ancient times, when the two sides called for battle, they usually took the place within a stone's throw as a safe distance, so the charging distance of cavalry was about 360-400 meters, so what was the speed of cavalry?

If it's a light cavalry, it's normal to sprint to 40 kilometers per hour, and the burden on the horse is not heavy.

If it is a heavy cavalry, if it is full armor, the horse will probably bear 200-300 Jin, and the speed will be slower.

In addition, charge formation should be considered when charging, and the speed should be slowed down, so the speed should be reduced to 30 kilometers per hour, which is 500 meters per minute.

So it only takes less than 1 minute for cavalry to sprint to archers. However, because the archers must be protected by cavalry and infantry in front of them in the war, the enemy cavalry can only kill near the archers if they defeat their own cavalry and infantry first, so it seems to be very slow and the actual distance is very short.