Over the years I have never touched or shot a bow – not really. However, I have managed to gather detailed information about bows, arrows, and the damage they do from a variety of first and second hand sources, and I thought that it would be a good idea to give you all a condensed (but still, I have a sneaking feeling, quite long) run down of my information on the subject.

Also, I (and everyone else, too, I expect) would be very grateful for anyone else to give their knowledge on the subject. Maybe even someone who has actually shot a bow could post!

I am definitely not going to be able to write everything I know into a post today, even if I condense it, so I shall just let it suffice it to write down a few interesting facts and post more later.


An arrow (or a bullet, for that matter) to the shoulder is not actually a 'safe' wound, although many stories portray it like that. In reality, the shoulder is a complicated mesh of bones, tendons, and arteries, and much of it cannot be fixed completely by a doctor after being broken or smashed. It is also easy to die from a wound to the shoulder or arm if a large enough artery is cut.

A shot to the head is not necessarily fatal, because the arrow almost never actually penetrates the skull unless it goes through the eyes (in which case it is usually fatal). If a doctor can remove the arrow and, sometimes, relieve pressure through trephining, the injury can in some cases actually turn out to be fairly harmless. One man had the arrow removed by a surgeon, sneezed, got up, and was perfectly fine except for having to be treated for a headache.

There are special arrows specifically for the purpose of cutting ropes. The arrow head has a sickle-moon shape, with the the two points curving out from the end of the arrow like a cow's horns. (If you can't visualize that, I can try to elaborate.) The arrow is shot at a rope, the sharpened blade of the arrow head catches the arrow in its curve, and, hopefully, cuts it. I would imagine it would require a fairly skilled bowman to shoot accurately enough to actually cut a rope, however...

The Hun warriors (I don't remember how many of them, or when, or where) wore silk blouses while in battle because when they were shot with an arrow, the arrow would find it difficult to penetrate the silk, and it would be shoved unbroken into the body along with arrow, making it easier to remove the arrow.


So what do y'all know about arrows, bows, and arrow wounds? Has anyone shot a bow? Has anyone studied them?

You seem to like asking questions which I'm interested in and can provide answers to!

I have done archery-- I took archery classes through 4-H for a few months. It's a very fun and very physically demanding sport. (I am proud to say I'm a pretty good shot- not as good as I am with firearms, but still pretty good).

Arrows, like bullets, came in a variety of different sizes and designs for different applications. This is a convenient source for different arrow tips and their uses. And, of course, you can always think up your own.

The bit of info about the Huns was quite interesting. I'll have to use that somehow.

I also did some classes, at a local center with my brother and Dad. I was probably about seventeen at the time, and I loved it. I was a pretty good shot, however unfortunately one day one of the students unknown to us went behind my target; we were given the go ahead signal, and I released my arrow just as this fellow appeared. I narrowly missed him, and the poor man was terrified and didn't take it very well! Needless to say, neither did I as I thought I'd just nearly badly harmed someone. I have never touched a bow and arrow since.

However I think that an arrow wound is very similar to a knife - it's not like a bullet where you can dig it without too much damage, it's much like a spear - when you pull it out it can cause much more damage than the entry wound. It's can be much larger than a bullet, and it's very sharp, so pulling it out is going to cause a lot of damage; if it is lodged in place, sometimes it can be holding in some of the bleeding I think, you rip/pull it out and it could do far more damage causing the victim to ultimately bleed to death in a much shorter time.

This link is quite helpful, I found. Medieval Arrowheads

Saphira and Jakorosin are probably better sources of information for you. I've only shot 3 different bows before - no real classes or anything.

I've done a bit of archery in the past, but it has been a while. A friend of mine makes bows and has been studying bow design for some time. You can check out his web page and contact him if you have questions. His name is Jacob and his company is called MountainBOWorks. He actually knows quite a lot.

Just gonna drop this tid-bit in:

Mongolian horse archers would time the loosing of their arrow for when all four of the horse's feet were off the ground (which happens at the gallop), because that was when their arrows would fly truest (since the movement of the horse's feet hitting the ground wouldn't shake their arm).

Also (another fun fact), Hiawatha was said to have been able to loose ten arrows before the first one would hit its mark (some guy of YouTube proved that this was possible, I should dig up the video *does that in the background while continuing to talk*).

If any of you are interested, I previously found a video of a Japanese man making horn bows (shows the entire process and is pretty fascinating for being in JP with no subtitles).

Guy with "old techniques" (has an English VO - did I mention he shoots faster than Legolas?)
Japanese horn bow follow-along (20+ mins and no translation, fyi)

*flies out*

Awesome.

Also, I would recommend reading the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan (Well, recommend for the most part - there is some language, most notably by the 5th book). He covers some technical aspects to the bow, and techniques.

How's this for technique? Sui just posted it on the Facebook page.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *ahem*

That is amazing. I had never heard of Lars Anderson.

While he's said in interviews that nothing was digitally altered, there was a lot of camera manipulation to make that movie. Examples including a bamboo arrow for when he splits an arrow with another one and using an arrow without a head for when it allegedly gets split along a knife blade.

Also, he's using a bow with a very low draw weight and not even pulling it all the way back. So if he was in a battle, his arrows would just bounce off enemy armor with no effect.

What he's demonstrating is trick shooting that borrows from techniques across lots of different cultures. So, for an archer in combat, that's not a really good technique to use.

I did notice that.

I wondered about that.

The two real techniques that were mentioned, are actually honest techniques and independently verifiable, however. I wouldn't say he's a very good archer when it comes to accuracy and range (although he is very fast), and you can't really believe his facts without checking them by another source (the reason some archers shoot with the arrow on the left side of the bow being because they aim with one eye is actually incorrect, for example), but he was not incorrect about the actual techniques existing.

I learned about those techniques from a Hungarian horse archer two years ago. They hold arrows in their hand, and place the arrows on the right side of the bow (the Eastern way of doing it). They are capable of shooting three arrows while riding past a target, one while facing forwards, one while facing sideways, and one while facing backwards, among other things.

It was just pretty amazing to see a video of someone shooting that fast.

What about the piercing of chain mail?

It didn't show how far they actually penetrated. Saracen archers complained during the crusades about how their arrows kept getting stuck in European chainmail instead of going through.

I also saw a comment somewhere that said an 11 year old with a 15 pound draw weight bow can pierce modern chainmail, which was probably what Lars was doing, since modern ones are made entirely different than the original ones. I'd be much more impressed if he shot an arrow through a set of plate.

There are a lot of different qualities of mail, like Varon said, and Lars was probably shooting at it from really close also, like he mostly did. He also probably put more effort into going to fuller draw when he was trying to pierce mail than when he was trying to shoot really fast... it didn't actually show him shooting, so I don't know. I noticed he did draw differently (and with a different bow) when it showed him shooting at a longer distance, and he was much slower then also.

Yeah, I've heard people mentioning how some historical documents record soldiers looking like porcupines without getting hurt, though I haven't really researched it... I think that might have something to do with gambesons as well. A really good gambeson does better than mail against bodkin arrows, I have heard. The arrows might have gone through the mail and stuck in the gambeson.

I did appreciate the distinction on the handwork though. It's so hard to get a notion of what any sort of fighting was like back then from what we see in the movies.