Archers need to shoot 3x faster to be historically realistic

[HoulaHoup]

Reinventing the fastest forgotten archery


Some living historian archer revisited the historical texts to develop a technique where arrows are held in hand while shooting. Using this technique he can shoot three arrows on target 69 metres away in less than 2 seconds, and pierce chain mail.

Someone more well-read than me go check up on this video and determine whether this is a more accurate representation of actual war archery.

[k/t]

The mail test is bs, as always, and the fact that he shoots the arrow very quickly has no bearing whatsoever on how well it will penetrate anything. As for the speed...I'd like to see him hit some man-sized targets from horseback, from 50 metres or more, with a 90 pound bow. Then we will see if this kind of speed shooting could have been used in war.

I've heard of this guy before. I will have to see some more videos to see how exactly he does it.

Anything related to combat in LOTR is utter crap, though. That's a fact. No speculation there.

[RollingWave]

How fast you could theoretically shoot or how heavy of bow you could theoretically pull is by no means the common or average

Chinese military manuels from a similar period explicitedly states that you should always use bows that are about 50-60% of your maximum draw weight in an actual fight, due to the obvious endurance issue.

fast shooting techniques exist everywhere, but the problem your either not making a full draw and/or you're going to tire out very quickly.

Not to meantion, the engine essentially limites archer unit to appear to fire as an entire unit, in such tactic usually you wait for everyone to draw and then shoot in volley, there's no way that could be very fast. if animation can be changed so pretty much each unit fire individually then we might have something .

[Ichon]

Would be curious what the draw is on that bow but it is not very high. Impressive still but it does remind me of some of the books I've read talking about the competitions common from England to Swiss to Turks but they used 'child' or 'half' bows which were not suitable for military use and the ranges of the competitions were usually under 100m while military bows were expected to be good to at least 200m and usually higher for the better archers.

There is an entire debate on instinctual/habitual aim vs actually aiming in both bows and guns. Personally I lean to the side of instinctual aim being more than a trick but it requires alot of hours of training but allows rapid shooting at surprising accuracy. I wouldn't be surprised if full time military archers possessed such skills but depictions appear to show both hunched over and more traditional style. It is an interesting question for animations but the max attack value should be 1 and probably accuracy a bit lower if we give archers really fast speed, also ammo would be gone really fast.

Anyway, there are alot issues with archers in MTW2 engine and without someone to change animation and also see if its worth it with testing the discussion is going nowhere.

[k/t]

It's not a trick. You can aim a snowball without sights, or a bowling ball. To be good, you just have to do it over and over and over and over...

[Ichon]

It's not a trick. You can aim a snowball without sights, or a bowling ball. To be good, you just have to do it over and over and over and over...

Snowball and bowling balls are very large relatively. Aiming an arrow or even a bullet requires more precision and thus the debate- at what range does the increased speed not make up for the increased accuracy of aimed shot? To me that question depends on the type of target and the skill of the marksmen.

English archers aimed at relatively large targets (enemy group) at fixed distance (range was called by experienced archer), When engaging at longer distances so rapid release was more important than gain of slower release but higher accuracy. As target closed the distance the rear ranks of English stopped releasing as they could no longer aim over the heads of front ranks, however the best archers were placed in the front ranks and once distance was less than 60 yards or so each man began aiming at individual targets, some might do instinctive release if they had the skill, others would aim more carefully for a headshot or to pick off leaders. Either way the rate of fire would decline hugely as only the front rank is letting loose arrows and many would be aiming a bit more carefully than instinctive aim. The main problem with instinctive aim is the huge hours of practice required to achieve and maintain that skill. Special forces in modern military have 100's thousands of rounds of practice ammo while regular soldiers often have just thousands per month.

[Kaidonni]

It's not a trick. You can aim a snowball without sights, or a bowling ball. To be good, you just have to do it over and over and over and over...

As someone who does archery, you tend to have to aim. You don't just pick a bow up, draw, and fire. Even without a special sight, there are ways to aim - for instance, I know that at 30 yards and at full draw, the tips of my arrows must touch the bottom of the wooden frame the target is mounted on for best results, or thereabouts. At 25 yards, I use a metal bolt on the side of my bow as a reference.

[k/t]

Recurve?

[Kaidonni]

Recurve?

Ah, shoulda mentioned that. Yes, I shoot recurve (the limbs are 24lbs at full draw, but my draw length is 24 3/4 inches...).

[Andytheplatypus]

use unit speed mod

[Ichon]

use unit speed mod

That just affects movement speed though right? Not firing speed? Firing speed change requires animation or attack delay.

[Rat-tail]

"Anything related to combat in LOTR is utter crap, though. That's a fact. No speculation there." KT

I do agree. Needs more real world test to prove that this method can be done.

[merocaine]

Still a very interesting demo, and seriously impressive, thats one guy, imagine hundreds of them, mounted, the shear volume of arrows would start to take there toll, esp when the distance closed, most medieval warriors were not heavy armored.
Also, hes being training like that for 3/4 years, a man who had spent his life at it would be considerable stronger, and have more endurance, hence the poundage of the bow could be increased.
The Comanche horse archers still held the advantage over the Texans until the advent of the 5 shot revolver, that's a fact attested to in many accounts from the period, if the Texans couldn't find a defensible position the were usually brown bread.

As regards the game, archers are op in the hands of the player as it is, lets not make it worse!

[Ichon]

I am leaning more and more that the armor ratings for mail should be a bit higher and the armor ratings of plate etc maybe a bit lower. I don't know if plate is really 3x as good as mail at least in game context. Because if bow units were faster and had more arrows nearly all units would require greater buff in armor or it would be machine gun style. I guess it is the accuracy of bowmen? Anyway it would be a huge amount of balancing and functionally the balance is close now, easier to tweak that then start over.

[k/t]

I remember PB saying that missiles are too inaccurate at close range and too accurate at long range, and that's definitely true.

In RC 2, top-quality Heavy Mail will be 8 while high-quality Heavy Mail will be 7.

[Philozoraptor]

We could always replace fire arrows with fast firing more accurate but short-mid ranged mode, though I am not sure if AI would be able to use it properly.

[Point Blank]

Right. And good missile archers shoot at 8-10x/min which is a SUSTAINABLE shooting rate with at 100lb+bow. FYI Moneybags14 has almost completed a RC2.0 auto-gen unit stat sheet using excel which will be released soon along with all RC2.0 updates.

[k/t]

You can have two kinds of arrows per unit? I see you've done something like that for the Siphonatores, but does it work for arrows as well?

[Point Blank]

You can have two kinds of arrows per unit? I see you've done something like that for the Siphonatores, but does it work for arrows as well?

No

[Philozoraptor]

Yes but ofcourse it wont be perfect. You can affect accuracy, velocity + angle (range) of each firing modes. You can also increase damage but going over value 0 will probably result in instant kills though I will test it. I am not sure if delay (15 s?) for shooting flaming arrows is hardcoded or not. If its hardcoded we can swap projectiles for both firing modes. "Fire arrows" would be long range slow firing mode while regular arrows would short-mid range mode with faster firing rate and better accuracy.

Edit:It seems I was wrong, damage value does not seem to affect units at all although it affects siege weapons. Still the range, visuals and into certain degree even attack speed can be affected.