[Ansteorra-archery] New Combat Archery Rule affecting Egg Baldar Blunts

[Eadric Anstapa]

----- Original Message -----
From: <jspinks at ix.netcom.com>
> Although I believe you are doing your best under adverse conditions, I
> think, Milord, that you may have missed the point.  Baldars are generally
> bought for one of two reasons- an archers lack of time over money to
> make blunts or (lets be honest) an archers disgust at fighters ignoring
> hits and an intent to get something that hits harder.

Buying Baldar blunts to save time is valid and is perhaps I think the ONLY
thing to recommend Baldar Blunts.

Wanting something that hits harder is NOT good.  I think a large part of the
problem we have with CA is that we have allowed ourselves to be sucked into
an escalating arms race.  And arms race that I think Combat Archery is
destined to lose.

In the past several years we have had a couple of Kingdoms who have
started the "Arrows must hit with sufficient force" rule and the "Plate is
proof against arrows" rule.  This has led to more and more people shrugging
off arrow shots.  As a result, and  your post is proof, people have sought
out harder hitting bows and blunts with the "I'll make them feel it"
attitude.  This is type of escalation is bad, that is how people get hurt.

If you shoot someone and they don't call the shot, just pick another target
and move on.  Don't get mad, don't call their shot for them, don't yell and
scream, don't call for a marshal, just move on.  It is their loss of honor
not yours.

The majority of heavy fighters like combat archery and think it adds
something to the game but more and more of those people are changing their
minds.  They are changing their minds because more and more of them are
getting shot time and time again with crossbows that are pumped up to right
at the legal limit, shooting the hardest hitting blunt that the archer could
find.  They are betting badly bruised and are starting the believe that CA
weapons are dangerous.  Archers will loose this type of arms race because
ultimately someone will get injured and CA will be banned.

The good news is that our current SEM is very big on standardization.  He
feels strongly that the conventions and rules across the various kingdoms
have diverged too much from the core SCA rules.  This divergence is causing
more and more problems as people travel from Kingdom to Kingdom and in
InterKingdom Wars.  Part of what he wants to address is blow calling from
Missile Weapons

>  I have had a number of interesting discussions this day at Emerald Keep
> with both fighters and archers.  Several fighters admitted that crossbow
> bolts were the main culprits that needed the apds
>

I dunno why crossbow bolts would need APDs more than arrows.  In fact that
is contrary to what my experiments have shown.  When shot against a hard
surface arrows bounced back as far or farther than a crossbow shooting a
bolt with the same energy and same head.  This would seem to be because when
the arrow strikes a target the shaft of the arrow bends and absorbs some of
the energy while the short and stiff crossbow bolt does not.  When the arrow
shaft springs back straight it bounces back farther than the bolt.

> and were surprised to learn of the difficulty of shooting an arrow with an
> apd.  They were also rather unhappy to learn that as a result it has
caused a
> number of archers to switch to crossbow due to the ability of a crossbow
to
> accurately fire an apd bolt. When it was mentioned that the baldar eggs
were
> outlawed there was NO recognition of helm penetration problems, only that
> they hit and left a bruise and they were happy that they were gone.  With
that
> view I believe it will be tough convincing the archery community that this
issue
> is about helm penetration.

I think most archers recognize that crossbows are easier to shoot than
handbows and a novice can get relatively good with a crossbow much quicker
than they can with longbow or recurve with or without APDs.  I still see
people who have taken the time to practice with their handbows with APD
equipped arrows who are still being quite effective.

Quite honestly watching certain battles like the Fort Battle and field
battles at Gulf War I think people like Michael Fray using longbows where
just as effective as the crossbowmen because they where doing a better job
of lobbing arrows up and over and dropping them where they wanted to.  I
think longbows still have an advantage when arcing fire is needed.  Ever
paid attention to how many arrows and how quickly Sir Erika can fire?  APDs
don't appear to have slowed her down a lot.

> As to the archers views- it was mostly that they either quit playing
> combat archery with the addition of apds or they will not start until the
rules
> settle down.  For those that have only been in combat archery 2-3 years
> such as myself and others- it does indeed seem that there are incessant
> changes- fiberglass from wood, apds, no baldars, switch to crossbow
> (because of aforementioned inaccuracies) etc etc.

I know that there were some archers who quit playing rather than spend the
15 cents an arrow or bolt that it would have cost to make their arrows more
safe.  After several helm penetrations and injuries it was clear that
something needed to be done and those archers would have rather had 15000+
heavy fighters modify their helms rather than have 500 or 600 archers add
APDs to their arrows.  Bottom line is that most fighters would not have been
willing to modify their expensive helms so either everyone would have
started shooting large tubular arrows, add APDs, or we would have stopped
having CA.

Personally I like most of the people I shoot arrows at, and don't what to
hurt them.  I thought me adding APDs to my arrows and bolts was the
responsible and most economically feasible thing to do.

> Like it not I am basically out the money for the blunts as well as the
> time I do not have to add blunts to my 50 crossbow bolts.  I am accurate
> with a bow.  I expect to be equally so with a crossbow.  I predict,
though,
> the next change will be to reduce the power of crossbows and I will then
be
> looking to change my crossbow power from the maximum.  At that point I
> will probably join others on the sidelines rather than continue bear the
cost
> of further change.

The potential loss of money that people have made on the new Baldar Blunts
is bad.  Hopefully there will be some good method devised to recover some of
that investment.

Currently I don't know of any other sweeping negative changes that are in
the wind.  However, I wont lie and tell you that there will never be any
because I am sure at some point there will be.

There certainly are people who think that the max power of crossbow should
be reduced.  I am not one of those people because I think that a 600IP
crossbow shooting a modified markland with 1" of padding is NOT excessive.
The people who think that 600IP is excessive are the ones get shot with
Baldar Blunts.  However, it is worth noting that in the tests that I have
done Crossbows do appear to deliver more energy than handbows.  Via my
chronograph readings it seems like a good 30# handbow is about equivalent to
about a 475IP or so crossbow.

In Service,

Lord Eadric Anstapa
Kingdom Archery Marshal, Ansteorra
eadric at scabrewer.com