Military archery and speed shooting videos - a little rant

Military archery and speed shooting videos - a little rant.
The bow is by a Hungarian maker whose name I cannot remember - not Grozer or Kassai - and is 60lbs draw weight.

[berndberndsen]

"You need a relatively thick shaft." - Matt Easton, 2014

[finkster]

What's with people accusing him of being jealous of Lars Anderssen, or assuming this video has anything to do with him? Look at the upload date on this video. November 21st, 2014. Now look at the upload date on the Lars Anderssen video. January, 2015. That's right, he uploaded this video several months before most of the world knew who Lars Anderssen even was. Get your dates right you dinguses.

[murkypool]

Today, all you need to offend somebody over long distances is Twitter.

[chrisdoe]

500 years in the future, some jackass is going to rediscover the lost art of doing trick shots with a .22 pistol and present it to the world as a forgotten combat skill.

[JCMELKOR]

I'm currently training to revive the lost art of speed shitting

[MarcRitzMD]

Oh Matt, I'm so thankful for this video. You can't imagine how many times I've had this discussion. For some reason people thought that mysterious video recorded with a robot voice was some kind of breakthrough in the field of archery and history when it's really just playful handling of a bow.

People who don't have extensive experience with archery don't realize that the stored energy is proportional to both the poundage and draw length of the bow. Further, they lack understanding for the need of power. A child's might seem terrifying to the parent of that child but that it will be put to shame if someone shoots a heavier bow or even a compound bow next to child. The arrows actually fly noticeably slower and don't penetrate anything remarkably well.

[dassonntagskind]

Its so funny - this is the 3rd Andersen rant video I saw now and it seems like no one actually watched Lars' video. He shows the drawing weight of the bow. He shows how he shoots with heavy arrows. He shows how he penetrates armor and ultimately and most importantly he shows how, even though it does not look like it, draws the bow out to a full extend. Half of the drawing comes from the arm on the arrow and the other one is a pull forward from the bow hand. You seem like a nice guy mate and you seem like you know what you are talking about but I really see no point in your video to be honest. 
P.s.: Just ignore my name. 

[garouHH]

...and on this day, no greaves were penetrated by armour, and no adventuring careers were cut short.

[RAkers-tuey]

Completely right.
Many war bows exceeded 120 lbs. A that weight what one can't do, is aim carefully. Those bows were mostly used as artillery, in volley, and at distance.

[Clockdrive]

People keep shooting arrows with various insults and racial slurs written on them; someone said something about 'trying to offend the enemy' - what the hell is going on?

[GurniHallek]

3:45 Ahh, you are speaking of the good olde times, when in order to offend someone you would need to actually hit them hard enough! Nowadays it's enough to wear a wrong kind of shirt to make many people scream like they are being murdered.

[RepresentWV]

You did well not to specifically mention Lars in this video, or it would have maaany more dislikes from his hungry fanboys

Actually, speed shooting is for entertainement purpose, and this in a lot of cultures and since a long time. There is actually no point to go to war speed shooting, as there is no point to go to war with a bbgun.

It's ment to impress and entertain, just like acrobatic moves or acrobatic horse riding.

Asking speed shooters to arm better their bows is contrary to the purpose, the same as speed shooters saying that speed shooting is for war.

And even if they could do it (and they could do it) they would do it with a lighter bow, let's say 30pounds, that doesn't makes things more war-ready.

I've seen one of those videos where the speed shooter shown how his arrows penetrated an chainmail. But frankly, you can penetrate a chainmail with a hammer and a chisel and with only one strike : if you put the chainmail on a solid support, as it was shown in the video.

A solid support makes the chainmail vulnerable because it let the chainmail take the whole energy of the impact, and so the impact energy will only be transmitted on one or two rings, which will break.

Chainmail is put on skin which is soft, and will transmit the energy of the impact on it's other rings around and it will not break, or, chainmail can be weared on matlassed cloth (usualy, that's the way to wear a chainmail) and the energy will be transmitted in the wole surface and be even less dramatic.

In conclusion, never forget this : folklore is a huge part of culture and lots of cultures are proud of their archery. From english archery to Manchu archery, you will have a lot of archery demonstration in a lot of culture's folklore.

Some are to show the speed (speed shooting is that) and some are to show strenght (check Iranian Zoorkanneh training for instance, where bows are heavily wheighted and only serve as a purpose to show and to train strenght and cannot indeed be used to shoot an arrow as the string, full of wheights, cannot even be strung)

Culture is wonderfull and folklore should be shown to the world. But it should be considered as it is or being considered as a lie : it is a show to entertain and impress, not a war practice.

[Themysterymove]

You say that now, but just wait until the plates throwing Vikings show up.

[edi]

What do you have to write on an arrow to make it offensive?
 ;-)

[romanlegionhare]

The difference for bows in hunting versus guns is the shock damage a bullet does. The expansion of the bullet does the damage and distributes the energy over a larger area (a muzzleloader ball does not create the same shock damage). An arrow, properly placed such as in the lungs or arteries, will make the animal bleed out very quickly, relying on blood loss to kill. However, an arrow not placed to cause a quick bleedout will be much less effective. A friend (who does A LOT of hunting) shot a black bear in the head with a bow (obviously killing it because of the brain shot), and it was very messy dressing it because it did not produce the same blood loss that a heart area shot does.

[dajolaw]

So glad you brought this up.  While the speed shooting is awesome you brought up 3 very important flaws: 1) partial draws which dramatically limit speed and power; 2) ridiculously low draw weights; and 3) shooting at targets only 5 meters away.  
Speed shooting could have situational uses (no need for full draw against an unarmored target at short range), for most medieval combat in Europe, the Levant, or the Eurasian Steppes, these techniques would be a waste of arrows.  

[TheWabbitSeason]

I hope you'll include medieval crossbows in your future videos on archery.

[LOFIGSD]

As an Archer with Traditional Bows, I agree with you 100% with old wooden Arrows and against Armoured opponents, also not forgetting the strings on old longbows had to be thick, so not that efficient. One comment in the modern context, leaving out Compounds, many Modern Recurves are much more efficient than Longbows, so dont need to be as heavy a Poundage to kill someone, even at Distance. Some of the Traditional Bows Grozer creates especially. FYI. Some Hungarian Archers only draw to the Chest on Horseback and can draw and shoot pretty fast and they are using Bows in the 50-80lb range, not going to penetrate plate armour, but remember those bows were much more efficient than longbows and History tells us they were lethal from Horseback, my 3rd Bow was a 120lb Longbow, it hit hard, many broken arrows, now shooting lighter Asiatic bows, why? more fun, cheaper to shoot and can use modern Carbon Arrows, both would kill you, accurate effective range about the same, if a theoretical Enemy was wearing armour, the big clunker the better choice, but against light infantry, the Asiatic bow better, less tiring to shoot and can carry more arrows.

[TheGuardian]

I don't remember where I heard this, but I heard with speed shooting with horseback archery in a military context, it went like this:

a tribe of 20-50 horseback archers come in running in your village (rapidly and now short range) and shoot everyone in the village, then either take the village as a new home or take the food, or just kill them all.

If their warfare strategy was different, it doesn't make the lighter bows useless, it makes them useful for something different. Also in this context, people aren't wearing armor