Some stuff on stuff

[Matijs van Zuijlen]

On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 11:42:53AM -0500, Choinski, Burton wrote:
> ||> Hello!?  McFly!  8.5sec = 3 phases.  I have bowmen take only 1 phase to
> ||> reload, and you complain, when real life has them take 2 phases? :}
>
> I'm sorry, that must have come out wrong.  That was ment as a joke, not an
> insult at him.
>
> ||So..
> ||
> ||1) I can't seem to find anything about reload times for normal bows
> ||(non-crossbows) in the books. Where is it?
> ||
> ||2) Isn't it great that the Romans had these real accurate watches?
> ||Seriously though, I'm wondering where those 8.5 seconds came from? Seems
> ||rather slow to me. Or is that two loads (as in "load and reload a
> ||bow...")? That would mean 1 phase per shot.
>
> from: http://www.historicalweapons.com/bowandarrow.html

Thanks for the URL. Very interesting. Especially how the longbow
basically replaced the crossbow. And I thought the romans didn't have
crossbows. That makes the Gladiator slightly less anachronistic ;).

> --------------------------
[ very interesting stuff snipped ]
> ----------------------------
>
> 12/minute = 1/5 seconds ~= 1/2 phases
> 8/minute = 1/7+ seconds ~= 1/2 phases
>
> The above text DOES account for the best of the best firing at double rate
> (1/phase), but from my own archery experience when going for speed you
> sacrifice accuracy.  The high rate was probably ONLY for arrow storms, where
> you are simply lofting mass numbers to rain down on an area of targets.
>
> My personal best, in timed shoots on the argery range at 30 seconds, is 5-6
> arrows.  I am not that great in skill, so most of mine that hit the target
> are pretty far off the center.  The best SCA archers I saw in timed shot
> made good hits out of 7-8 arrows, which is closer to the 3/4 rate that
> Brandon indicated in his followup.  But that is for the best of the best
> level archers.  EL?  Pretty high.

So basically it boils down to a certain EL giving you a certain rate at
a certain accuracy. It's nice to see some 'hands-on' numbers.  So, 5-6
arrows/30 seconds corresponds nicely with the 12/minute given.  That
would mean one reload phase, one shooting phase.  How far away would the
target be in your setup? Could you go faster if the target was closer,
or is there a limit to how fast you can actually pull the arrows out of
the quiver, so to speak? Could you reach 1/phase if the target was point
blank, is what I really want to know.

> Could these same SCA archers pull it off in war, with all the death and
> confusion around them?  Probably not.  But for a person trained in it I
> think we can safely extrapolate.

Those would have a max rate of 30/8=3.75 sec/shot, so 3 shots per turn.
That would be a bit difficult to play.

--
Matijs