Post
by Oscar » Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:29 am
Not quite, the American Longbow actually performs much better than the English longbow. American longbows introduced a slight recurve near the tip, but not quite enough to class it as a recurve.
As you can see the American longbow edges out the English one by a good 50 meters or so.
The American longbow also has a nicer feel to the shot than English longbows.
I'm not so sure about the yumis(Japanese longbow). I have a fellow at the range shooting a 60 lbs yumi, now granted the arrows they shoot are much much longer than arrows used on longbows. But the speed of those arrows coming out of the yumi seems quite low. I have chrono'd the yumi's speed before but can't seem to recall what result was.
Penetration power is the one thing that has not been tested with most of these bows. From the tests I've seen, the ELB shooting bodkin arrows were able to get 2 inch of penetration through plate armor from 30 yards away. Yumi's on the other hand have never been tested against plate armor. The Japanese never developed plate armor. If you look at the arrowheads that the Japanese used, they're all designed to bleed, with broad cutting edges. They're effective against unarmored targets, but won't work against plate armor.
<3
