Japanese Yumi vs English Longbow

Thegn Ansgar · Jul 7, 2011

bloofungus said:
The English War Bow was the first super weapon, used by commoners to kill the ruling class, the nobles. While the Japanese weapon was used by so called warriors who could not even win any battles outside their own country.

You can't really say they couldn't win any battles outside their own country. They were doing well against the Koreans. The problem is that Japan, despite being an island nation had ships that were rather poor on oceans.

Japan's problem... The Ming dynasty got involved. There were few armies in the world that could compete with Ming armies of the late 16th century. However the Imjin war caused some fairly big financial troubles for the Ming dynasty.

It wasn't even the longbow that was primarily effective. It was their field fortifications that helped (as we can see by the very large longbowmen casualties at Verneuil and the utter rout at Patay).

Also, the English Longbow was not primarily a peasant weapon. It was used by rich people as well. An edict of Edward III states "Whereas the people of our realm, rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practise archery – whence by God's help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises... that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows... and so learn and practise archery."

The English longbow was a defensive weapon, because it was most effective when employed behind stakes and poles. And unlike Samurai archers, an English longbowman was incapable of hand-to-hand combat for long periods.

Naomasa298 · Jul 7, 2011

bloofungus said:
The English War Bow was the first super weapon, used by commoners to kill the ruling class, the nobles. While the Japanese weapon was used by so called warriors who could not even win any battles outside their own country.

Is there any need for this?

And actually, the Japanese won many battles in Korea.

[edit] Thegn's answer is far better than mine.

mtheoret · Oct 11, 2012

Incredibly strong bows.

okamido said:
That's definately equivalent to the longbow. With the longer Ya (arrows), it seems that the Yumi would pack more punch.

Does the shape of the Yumi affect its distance capabilities?

Some yumi have a specific shape that is better suited for precision long distance shooting. The Kyoto bows made by Shibata XXI are a good example of this specialization. His bows are crafted with the Sanjūsangen-dō temple shooting in mind. (120 meters, 394 feet.) The balance between the specific asymetrical curves (and a lot of other factors like choice of bamboo and other woods) can lead to different flight patterns.

That said, both weapons are beautiful and the warriors that wielded them had to follow strict training to be able to shoot a lot of arrows with accuracy. In my opinion, both the yumi and longbow are useless if they are shot with a bad, inconsistent release. My experience with the yumi tells me that a clean release (hanare) increases the chance of producing a straight shot that would pierce armor, even with a lighter arrow.

okamido · Oct 11, 2012

Thanks for the answer, and welcome to Historum.

harbinger · Oct 12, 2012

Pancho35 said:
English Longbow > Every other bow in the entire world. Nothing can match its range and power.

Not really,the mongol turkic composite bow gives as good as it gets.

arras · Oct 13, 2012

Cedar Brown said:
I'll second that it depends more on the archer. As far as I know, power is mostly about draw weight. And the draw weight only matters if the archer has the strength to draw it.

This.

Tairusiano · Oct 13, 2012

Cedar Brown said:
I'll second that it depends more on the archer. As far as I know, power is mostly about draw weight. And the draw weight only matters if the archer has the strength to draw it.

The Japanese bow is superior on horseback though. There is at least one account of the longbow being used on horseback but I suspect that the success of the endeavor on that occasion was due to the shock of the attack rather then deadly aim.

arras said:
This.

the Archer is the weapon per se, a bow is a tool that need the human strenght to work, even if a bow had a great draw weight still the capacity of the archer that count, the archer is the tiebreaker.

arras · Oct 13, 2012

To be fair, bow -its construction does matter of course. But not in a way people usually refer to. Under certain conditions, short bow is required: when firing from horseback. In wet climate, composite bows are on disadvantage as moisture disrupts their glue. And so on.

Iolo · Oct 13, 2012

Why is the longbow suddenly 'English'? They weren't very good at it. We were.

arras · Oct 13, 2012

Iolo said:
Why is the longbow suddenly 'English'? They weren't very good at it. We were.

Longbow is Welsh neither. It was used all over the Europe. Then of course people on the continent invented crossbow and nobody bothered with longbow any more. Except English and Welsh which thanks to their geographic position could act as dinosaurs

Iolo · Oct 13, 2012

arras said:
Longbow is Welsh neither. It was used all over the Europe. Then of course people on the continent invented crossbow and nobody bothered with longbow any more. Except English and Welsh which thanks to their geographic position could act as dinosaurs

And win the battle of Agincourt, I suppose. Silly of us.

arras · Oct 13, 2012

Iolo said:
And win the battle of Agincourt, I suppose. Silly of us.

Winning one battle does not mean you won war.

English before war with France:

English charge in to France with longbow:

At the end of the war 100 years later:

I would say, 1:0 for crossbow

Gnaeus · Oct 13, 2012

Pancho35 said:
English Longbow > Every other bow in the entire world. Nothing can match its range and power.

Not a Mongolian Composite bow.

Iolo · Oct 13, 2012

arras said:
Winning one battle does not mean you won war.

English before war with France:

English charge in to France with longbow:

At the end of the war 100 years later:

I would say, 1:0 for crossbow

As to England, who cares? All I said was that we were good at using the longbow. Our men were hired all over Europe, and especially in France. They came cheaper than crossbow men, doubtless.

arras · Oct 13, 2012

Iolo said:
As to England, who cares? All I said was that we were good at using the longbow.

You sure were, I do not doubt that. That is why French cut your thumbs when they captured you. Do they still do it bye the way?

Iolo said:
Our men were hired all over Europe, and especially in France. They came cheaper than crossbow men, doubtless.

Well this I doubt. Welsh bowman were expensive. They were good as you said after all. Average crossbowman on the other hand... If they were not famed Italian mercenaries than certainly were not more expensive.

rehabnonono · Oct 13, 2012

Pancho35 said:
English Longbow > Every other bow in the entire world. Nothing can match its range and power.

Got references for that one? That are not British...
There are a few things other than draw weight at play. Turkish bows of the Ottoman era were probably the best in the age of the bow and arrow.

HBT · Oct 14, 2012

I'm going to throw my hat into the ring here and say that it is impossible to compare recurve (which are typically composite in nature) and self bows.

The longbow, I'll refrain from calling it either English or Welsh as it was in use throughout the British Isles as a whole, was certainly an effective weapon. Its use at battles such as Falkirk and Agincourt certainly cemented the longbow's reputation as a ranged weapon and man killer.

However, I believe that the weapon's reputation was built not only with the weapon itself nor indeed the skill of the archers who used it but, more importantly, by the numbers in which it was deployed by the English.

At the battle of Crécy it is estimated that Edward III put between 5-7000 archers in the field, whilst the French numbers of crossbowmen are disputed.

A skilled archer could shoot upwards of 10 arrows per minute which when multiplied by the lower estimate at Crécy gives an arrow storm of 50,000 arrows falling on French heads.

Did, or could, the Japanese field that many archers?

On a one to one comparison basis both bows may be very similar, however, I firmly believe that the longbow's reputation is built on numbers fielded, rather than technological superiority.

Muddy Waters · Jan 9, 2013

The English longbow SYSTEM

My vote goes more to the longbow or more correctly the system of the long bow. Here are a few facts.
There are no examples of personal longbows that were used in war still in existance but the concensis it that they would have a draw strength above what just about anyone could draw today. The reason the english kings put the purses up to be won by any archer was to encourage the male population to learn how to use these monsterous weapons.
The way a longbow was drawn did not rely so much on arm muscles drawing back the string but by the chest and shoulder muscles as the bow was moved from an upward pointing direction down to the aiming direction where upon it was immeadiately released in one continuous movement. The tension involved was far to much for the archer to hold on target. The samuri would be needing many of these muscles to ride a horse and by no means could this movement be accomplished in anything but a fully standing position. If an archer could do this crouching or on a horse it ment his bow wasn't big enough. This is also shown in archyology deformed skeleton finds of archers.
The longbow was also used over the crossbow by the english because of the longbows rate of fire (approx 7 to 1) and because the training that the english archers put themselves through nearly matched up to the crossbow in terms of range. If neccessary to engage crossbows a quick rush forward would quickly bring the crossbow men into range (also consider trying to load a crossbow as opposed to a long bow on the run).

Halomanuk2 · Jan 9, 2013

English Longbow easily...the skill the English Archers had was untouchable in the day and the longbow saved our armies many times in Agincourt and other battles of the day.

arras · Jan 9, 2013

okamido said:
Pound for pound, which bow whas most effective, the weapon of the elite, or the weapon of the common man?

How can one pound be more effective than another pound? Pound is pound, no matter form.

80lb longbow and 80lb Yumi (or any other 80lb bow) have exactly the same effectiveness (if we disregard some specific battlefield conditions -like restrictions of horseback archery and so on).

What people usually do not understand about archery is that its "power" is determined by strength of archer, not construction of bow. You can construct any bow as strong as you want simply by increasing size/thickens of material. Question is if you will find archer strong enough to draw it. There is of course structural limit of some materials but those by far exceed physical limits of human body so we can disregard them (I mean material commonly used in construction of bows not say paper). Also due to laws of physic, when you cross certain draw weight, gains in force such bow can project on to arrow are greatly diminishing. If I remember right, there is not much point in increasing draw weight beyond 100-120lb.

It seems most war bows, in most cultures were around 80lbs. That is what trained archers could pull. And those are very powerful bows by today standards, most healthy strong modern men have difficulty to draw 50-60lbs. Skeletons of archers even tend to show specific deformation of bones which show unusual musculature equal to professional athletes.

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Japanese Yumi vs English Longbow

Japanese Yumi vs English Longbow

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Thegn Ansgar

Naomasa298

mtheoret

okamido

harbinger

arras

Tairusiano

arras

Iolo

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Iolo

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Gnaeus

Iolo

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rehabnonono

HBT

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Halomanuk2

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