Mongol bow - question to chono

I've just read the book of polish scholar Witold �wietos�awski "Arms and armour of the nomads of the great steppe in the times of the Mongol expansion". One chapter of this book is about mongolian bows. Author - base on his meetings with the "last mongolian bow-craftmens" G. Menes claim that the average shooting range of such bow is about 350 m, paralelly author quote two mongolian books - "Mongolyn zevsgiin tovch.. " by Damdinsuren and " Mongolyn ertnii kharbuul temceen" by Gongorzhab which gives much shorter ranges resp. 33 ??!! algs (1 alg= 1.6-1.8 m) and 135 bows. My question is if do you know this books and if the ranges given in this books are really such short ?

here's a quote from the Osprey book on mounted archers:

"We are able to know something of the range of ancient bows, thanks to chance archaeological finds and recorded feats. On the Genghis Khan Stone, dating from the early 13th century AD, the archer Esukhei is recorded as having fired a distance of 335 ald in competition in the year 1225, this being around 1,759ft (536m). One and a half thousand years earlier, also using a bow of composite type, a similar result was achieved, at the site of ancient Olbia, a Greek Black Sea colony. A stele of c.300 BC has been found at Olbia that describes the distance-firing feat of a certain Anaxagoras son of Dimagoras - some 1,711ft (521.6m).
The distances recorded in these two cases are impressive and instructive. Such distances were clearly feats worthy of memorializing on stone, and indicate the outer range of the earlier Scythian and subsequent Mongolian bows. However, an effective range of around 575ft (175m) was more realistic, and at a distance of 160 to 200ft (50 to 60m), deadly accuracy could be expected. [...]"

Originally posted by Temujin here's a quote from the Osprey book on mounted archers: "We are able to know something of the range of ancient bows, thanks to chance archaeological finds and recorded feats. On the Genghis Khan Stone, dating from the early 13th century AD, the archer Esukhei is recorded as having fired a distance of 335 ald in competition in the year 1225, this being around 1,759ft (536m). One and a half thousand years earlier, also using a bow of composite type, a similar result was achieved, at the site of ancient Olbia, a Greek Black Sea colony. A stele of c.300 BC has been found at Olbia that describes the distance-firing feat of a certain Anaxagoras son of Dimagoras - some 1,711ft (521.6m). The distances recorded in these two cases are impressive and instructive. Such distances were clearly feats worthy of memorializing on stone, and indicate the outer range of the earlier Scythian and subsequent Mongolian bows. However, an effective range of around 575ft (175m) was more realistic, and at a distance of 160 to 200ft (50 to 60m), deadly accuracy could be expected. [...]"

It is worth to put this into a practical perpspective. At 50-60 meters archer using these bone and sinew composite bows could shoot arrow through any small opening or weak spot in the armor or shield wall. At 100 meters they could put arrow through any object size of the human head.

Erik Hildingers book on Steppe warfare is really crappish and wrong in many cases, i've quit reading after finishing the parts on mongols because i felt the bias of the book is overtakign my mind already...

the part on Seljuk Turks is fromt eh PoV of the Crusaders and has little info on the Turks and their tactics themselves and in the part on Mognols he totally got wrong names of personallities and even claimes K�bilai, G�y�k and �gedai to be brothers....

Originally posted by Landsknecht_Doppelsoldner A 16th century Persian text says that the maximum range for accurate shooting on foot, against a man-sized target, is about 80 yards. F. Paterson, author of the famous article, "The Archers of Islam" (used as a source in Erik Hildinger's Warriors of the Steppe), estimated that accuracy from horseback was much shorter--perhaps only 10 yards. Bows of course have a longer range, which can be used against massed targets.  The best source for this info in English is still Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's classic text, The Crossbow.

 

I did not read this book, but lets look at your quote.

There are a lot of books out there and some are really thoughtless and try to promote some hidden agendas.

Bow is effective at 10 yards. These Mongols must have been drinking kumys for many weeks. I suspect, Mongol children could do better than that. Surprisingly, there is a logic to history and if you correlated your sources you would not be repeating someone else's nonsense.

I am going to look at Huns. Mongol bow was an improvement on Hun bow and is considered an evolution of Hun bow.

We can see nonsense in this 10 yard (less than 10 meters) range  if we examine Hun tactics. Huns were very effective against Roman legions. Roman wall of shields was impenetrable to firing arrows in masse. It could shelter from above as well. Huns used their precision marksmanship to deal with it. They would mill around legion and use any opening to score. Killed legionnaires , by falling, would create bigger openings and legion was destroyed.

How can we estimate range of these archers?

 

Romans used Pilum (heavy spear) with effective range of about 30 meters. Stupidity was not part of Hun character, and they remained beyond effective range of Pilum. Which means they had to do precision shooting  at a longer than 30 meters range. Arab source quote distance for precision shooting at 40 times the bow length. Looking at battle accounts, Mongols did better than that. There is a lot of talking about knights armor. It could not help against precision marksmanship. There are just too many soft spots in it. Armor is effective against massed arrows, but not precision shots. Being practical, Mongols also shot horses. For effectiveness, it requires precision as well, particularly if horse was protected.

 

Anyway they never need to be that accurate.

They were blackening the skies with arrows, like a continual voley... I suppose that at close rasnge then they did direct shot at target of opportunity. But no snipping at 300 yards for sure, they were humans not balistas!

Hensojin

(edited to add notification by email)

Edited by Hensojin