What was the draw weight of a Hun war bow?

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 1:54 pm

I would agree with you Adam - insisting on arrows being very finely matched to the bow in terms of spine would result from target archery and the pursuit of ever more perfect scores. Target equipment differs from military in the way that an Olympic competition rifle differs from a 0.303 Lee Enfield. Both weapons have a different degree of accuracy but both are accurate enough for their intended purposes.

A question I would ask is whether an over-spined arrow returns to straight flight after glancing off the bow handle (after a few tens of yards maybe), or does it continue flying at a tangent from the line of sight? From my experience they do seem to - but then I do not consider myself to be that accurate an archer! You could also sub-consciously compensate.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:02 pm

It would be difficult to prove exactly that spine was important to the Hunns, by Hunns I mean Xiongnu and all the other diverse peoples of Central Asia who used bows of this design.

Nevertheless here is a photo of a Mongol quiver of the Yuan Dynasty from Inner Mongolia. This is about a millineum later than the era of which we are discussing.

Note that the arrow in the lower of the photo with a heavy point has a much larger diameter than the arrow just above it with a light point.

Having the arrow not break when being shot is only the beginning. The arrows work is done on impact. -j-

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:19 pm

I think to shoot effectively, your arrows would have to be in the region of the right spine for the bow. To be greatly underspined or overspined would lead to inaccuracy as well as poor performance. Wrongly spined arrows waste energy from the bow by either excessive paradox flexing or by friction against the handle. Both would cost you precious yards of range in a combat situation - when your enemy might be using decent, well set-up gear.

So Jack, your picture showing a heavier gauge shaft used with a heavier head does seem to indicate attention being paid to the matter of arrow spine. However, as has been said earlier, calculation would not have been carried out to the obsessional degree of modern target archers.

It is not difficult to do adequate spining by hand and feel. I shoot traditional longbow and recurve here in the UK and make arrows out of all kinds of woods from different sources - not just ready made and matched arrow shafts. It is not too much of a problem to get it right enough(...as far as my level of accuracy can tell!)

Evan Painter · Post by **Evan Painter** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:29 pm

Spine of arrow matters less if you are using a thumb draw, not that these people were nessesarily using that. But I'm sure other techniques are effected to varying degrees.

This is not an argument that they didn't spine arrows for their bows, I am just saying it is not always as important.

Evan Painter

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 7:21 am

I corresponded with Dr S. Miniaev about Xiongnu burials and he confirmed that there were no traces of thumb rings or even leather thumb guards in their burials. This is not proof they did no use them, but it does make it unlikely, considering that some graves were well preserved.

It is a popularly held belief that the Huns are somehow related to the Xiongnu and there is evidence of cultural and technological connections. Under these conditions, it would be unlikely that the Huns used thumb rings either.

You can shoot with a thumb lock without protection, but it is hard work.

Regarding the low importance put on spine by thumb ring users, this is more complex than appears at first sight. A thumb ring archer would not care within a certain range what spine his arrows had, but he would want them to be all the same. Old books stress that arrows should all have similar weights and points of balance if they were going to be used together. Weight is still a criterion in Korea because a set of wood or bamboo arrows with identical proportions (diameter, length, and shaft weight) would have similar stiffness.

The degree of flex in a short Turkish arrow is probably less when shot by a thumb ring than by three fingers, but it has an influence. Generally arrows group to the left or right depending on their stiffness. There is not the great variation sometimes seen with the Mediterranean release. However, all energy waste would be avoided if possible by ancient archers in the same way we do and simple observation can detect fishtailing arrows.