[ANST - Suffer the Slings and Arrows?]

[Rhonda New]

Aahh.  This is most interesting.  Especially to bowyer's and fletchers.
Lord Artair Macmora (lives in Northkeep area but claims Elfsea home)
has begun a bowyers' guild and has wondered likewise. Unforntunately,
he doesn't have e-mail.  He would love this thread.  In the meantime,
I feel an idea for an event brewing.... (not for the weak!)

//Lady Elizabeth Hawkwood
Barony of Elfsea
Apprentice to Lord Artair Macmora


Keith Hood wrote:

> A&S mavens, armorers, bowyers and anybody of like mind, please take note:  I
> would love to get a project going to research and recreate period-accurate
> equipment, and then do a destruction test.  Anybody interested?  I know it may
> sound a little crazy to want to do all that work so that things can be broken,
> but it would put an end to the "how dangerous were archers" arguments once and
> for all.  And it just may be fun to do.
>

and "Michael F. Gunter" wrote:

> I'm sure there must have been tests out there of period weapons used on period
> armor. Like broadswords swung at riveted mail on a cow carcass. But even that
> test truly doesn't recreate the difference between a man fighting in it and
> a limp carcass hanging as a tester swings with all of his might.
>
> I would like to see the results of such a test, or better yet, do them myself.

> But here comes the roundabout discussion. The arrows could go through shield
> and armor, etc..et al.. But most shields, I'm mainly looking at the typical Viking
> round here, were a quarter inch plywood which was mainly used to get a force
> through arrow storms and into ax weilding range. Shields were not the magic
> weapons either. But these were sufficient to slow down the arrows enough for
> the warrior to close range. I know it was against different bows than the longbow
> or recurve but I still feel is says that the arrows weren't all that powerful.

> I fully concur. The sport of SCA combat is interesting and I enjoy it but I would be
> more interested in a) learning how the period weapons and armor really worked and
> b) defining just what it is that we are doing in the SCA. Is it tournament combat with
> rules and honor or is it a duel? I personally feel it is the former. There's a lot of nasty
> things I would do to someone I'm trying to kill that I wouldn't dream of on the tourney
> field.

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