Persiflage wrote on Nov 24^th, 2013 at 4:00pm:


I've had enough of this fucking stupidity.

I will now PROVE, as I am the leading buttsexpert in my field, that claymores were better than shurikens.

First of all, claymore were made of clay, while shurikens are made of uranium. This is highly unstable and probably is why that nuclear reactor just blew up in asia. Secondly, there is MORE of a claymore, while shurikens are some guy named ken.

NaturalHazard wrote on Nov 24^th, 2013 at 7:06pm:


Twice as long, indeed.  Extra points if you can work out why. 

Hint: no matter what you might read, it's nothing to do with horses. 

Wow.  That was awesome.  Thanks for sharing.  Worth the read and watch.

Friggen amazing! 

Now how about the old yarn that the English longbowmen could get 5 arrows up in the air at the same time?

After seeing this, well hell! guess it was possible considering the "hang time" of a long shot.

Thanks for posting it

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because it took a lot less skill to aim and fire a smooth bore musket than an arrow.

Yobai wrote on Nov 26^th, 2013 at 12:31am:


No.

Persiflage wrote on Nov 24^th, 2013 at 7:18pm:


I'm going to guess harmonics. Grip is likely positioned where there is a node in the harmonic wave of the bow making for less vibration during and after shooting.

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That's actually trivial, if what you're attempting is specifically "getting a lot of arrows into the air at the same time". 

I and a couple of my friends had a nasty (and somewhat dumb, it must be said) trick that we would pull during battle re-enactments, which is an illustration of this...

When you're taking part in a big battle re-creation, the archers of each army (each typically commanded by a Captain of Archers, which is a fun job) will generally arrange themselves in lines.  Shooting towards the "enemy" is done using hard rubber blunts at a distance which varies considerably but might typically be around 100 yards.  The blunts have to be fairly hard to prevent injury from the shaft of the arrow penetrating the tip on impact.  (Fowling blunts - padded leather, more often than not - are used at much shorter range, are much heavier and don't fly particularly steadily so they wouldn't be suitable.)  The point here is that those "safety" blunts hurt if they're travelling at speed. 

Anyway, the archers shoot on command ("Knock!  Draw!  Loose!") and loft the arrows up high.  This has two effects: one is to give a great crowd-pleasing cloud of arrows for the watching members of the public; the other is that the Captains of Archers can take it in turn to volley and make sure everyone in their bloc (all wearing helms of one sort or another) can get their eyes down so they don't catch an arrow to the face.

That's the theory.

Of course, if a few of you have much more powerful bows than those typically used in re-enactment - say, um, 120lb+ instead of 40lbs - then you can aim more vertically and send the arrows much, much higher...  which means they fall many seconds later than everyone else's, even though you all shot at command.  Which means you can bag yourself an enemy Captain of Archers as he's no longer paying attention; and he has to fall over 'cos the whole crowd is watching, and nobody knows it was you, because you were careful to shoot at the same time as everyone else ('stragglers' are generally evicted from the battlefield if it looks like it was on purpose).

Like I say, it was dumb; I'm going with the 'young and stupid' explanation.

But yes; I've never specifically tried getting as many arrows in the air as possible, but if all I care about is getting enough height to put the next arrow up, and the next, and the next, and aren't also trying to hit something...  I'm certain I could beat five.

Yobai wrote on Nov 26^th, 2013 at 12:40am:


This gets repeated a lot, even by some pop-historians.  It is absolutely not true, and if you consider it for a little while (and know just a little history) you'll see that it makes no sense whatsoever...

Broad hint: I would expect the Americans here to work this out very, very quickly once they start thinking about it, as it's to do with a national obsession of theirs 

Persiflage wrote on Nov 26^th, 2013 at 11:06am:

I'd say it had more to do with being able to make a breastplate that could stop an arrow.  (it was just really expensive and heavy)  But not being able to make one that would stop a musket.

Persiflage wrote on Nov 26^th, 2013 at 11:06am:


Which obsession?  Gun collections? Deforestation of the Yew? Getting fat? The decline of the land bound peasant and rise of free Middle Class? Technology driven markets?

I'd actually thought the impetus towards crossbows and then guns, was an all-of-the-above-plus-more sorta thing in medieval-renaissance Europe.