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TJK
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Topic: Mongol bow - question to chono Posted: 14-Nov-2004 at 05:48 |
I've just read the book of polish scholar Witold wietosawski "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 ?
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Chono
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Posted: 15-Nov-2004 at 05:55 |
I don't really know these books, there many works in mongolian about bows etc I believe, as it's a popular sport. The bows that these books are talking about are probably for sporting purposes, those are approximately 1m long and use arrows with large bludgeons instead of sharp tips. I'm not quite sure about the range of these bows, but can imagine it to be about 50m at most. They're mostly built for accuracy and not for hitting through an armor. The Chinggis stone says Esunge hit from 335 alds so old bows must've been much stronger.
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Temujin
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Posted: 07-Jan-2005 at 16:16 |
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. [...]"
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TJK
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Posted: 18-Jan-2005 at 04:39 |
Yeah, this was probably error in english issue of wietosawski's book (which I have) I have looked into polish issue and found the same distance as quoted by you i.e. 335 algs
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cavalry4ever
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Posted: 18-Jan-2005 at 16:24 |
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.
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Landsknecht_Doppelsoldner
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Posted: 27-Feb-2005 at 10:35 |
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.
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"Who despises me and my praiseworthy craft,
I'll hit on the head that it resounds in his heart."
--Augustin Staidt, of the Federfechter (German fencing guild)
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Temujin
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Posted: 27-Feb-2005 at 16:48 |
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...
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Landsknecht_Doppelsoldner
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Posted: 27-Feb-2005 at 18:00 |
Originally posted by Temujin
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... |
What exactly is "crappish" about it, and what "bias" does it contain? Hildinger uses plenty of pertinent primary and secondary sources, and his approach appears to be a no-nonsense one.
It's time to stop trolling, Temujin. If you have something genuinely worthwhile to offer, than by all means do so.
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"Who despises me and my praiseworthy craft,
I'll hit on the head that it resounds in his heart."
--Augustin Staidt, of the Federfechter (German fencing guild)
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Temujin
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Posted: 27-Feb-2005 at 18:17 |
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 Kbilai, Gyk and gedai to be brothers....
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Landsknecht_Doppelsoldner
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Posted: 27-Feb-2005 at 18:32 |
Originally posted by Temujin
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 Kbilai, Gyk and gedai to be brothers.... |
He claims Kublai and Ogodai were brothers? What page?
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"Who despises me and my praiseworthy craft,
I'll hit on the head that it resounds in his heart."
--Augustin Staidt, of the Federfechter (German fencing guild)
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cavalry4ever
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Posted: 23-Apr-2005 at 20:53 |
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.
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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.
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Guests
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Posted: 03-Jul-2005 at 00:52 |
First of all, it's impossible to shoot at a small spot at 40 bow lengths away. The same goes with a target 512 meters away. Any mentally consious person will realize that immediately. Believing in such things is like those little kids that tries to simulate those extreme events in movies like leaping off a building and trying to fly. Another thing to think about is how accurate can today's olympic archers shoot. They are no where near those claimed ranges. those are merely exaggerations. The asian archers have a reputation to be less skilled than the english archers. This appears in chinese, arab, or japanese manuscripts. They requires very close ranges for their archers to shoot accurately compared to the english longbowmen. landsknecht Doppelsoldner is generally correct except that his estimated range for horse archers is somewhat a bit short. The persian range is around the same as the range described in chinese manuscripts as they have similiar bows being composite and larger than the turkish ones. John france estimates that the mongol archers shoot from 50 meters away and Garlan y estimates the maximum range of the mongol bow was somewhere over 200 meters and the effective range was 60. And these effective ranges meant at least at a man sized target and not the slit on the visor!
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Hensojin
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Posted: 24-Feb-2006 at 13:16 |
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
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BigL
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Posted: 24-Feb-2006 at 23:01 |
Were was it ever said that english archers were superior to chinese,where did you come up with that.
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