Or that they're holding the bow drawn for a long period of time, waiting for the order to "fire".
Long bows averaged a 200lb draw weight. Try holding that for 5 minutes.
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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Archers of the day:
Literally - you can pick out English longbowman bodies from the shape of their skeletons
Now I'm imagining a swole skeleton with buff bones
It's mostly their twisted spine, as far as I'm aware.
You just have to ruin everything, don't you?
I never blamed the archer on the walls of Helms Deep. Waiting for the enemy to get all the way up to your walls was dumb enough, but waiting while having drawn your bow for what must've felt like ages for a human archer, is fucking rediculous. Terrible leadership.
You don't want your archers to be excausted before the battle even starts, just so you can look really unbothered on top of your wall.
I agree, but it’s obviously done for the tension in the movie. It wouldn’t be as exciting, if the archers were just chillin’ while the Uruk-hai were charging. 😄
Props to the movies that shout the "Loose!" command
As I understand it, that's still not very historically accurate. It was not really a thing for archers to nock and loose together like they do in the movies.
Never really made sense to me, loose all the arrows at once and then give a break between volleys? Gives everyone a chance to hide behind their shield, and then advance when it's clear. Unless volleys are perfectly timed between multiple rows of archers.
Random arrows flying constantly never gives the enemy a chance to feel safe since it's a constant barrage, and there's no wasted time for the archers needing to wait for the command to fire.
Archers were strategic weapons, not the main crux of killilng. They were used to do things like keeping an enemy division pinned down so that your cavalry can move around them or one of your own divisions can reach a more advantageous position. A well placed concentrated barrage could force an enemy to move in a direction that is more advantageous to you, etc...
They weren't the primary means of killing people. They were the means of steering the battle where the general wanted it to go.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volley_fire Y'all really just make stuff up without even checking wikipedia huh? It wasn't typically used in medieval Europe for bows beyond the initial volley, though of course initial volleys were still a thing. You didn't just have elements of archer formations fire whenever they decided the range seemed right.
for the haters :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volley_fire#Bows
The co-ordination and timing could probably be resolved with musical instruments, which were used to relay orders, messages etc.
EDIT : Also, what did OP expect, for all the characters to speak Old English?
i usually complain to the wife when horrible tactics are used in medieval battles.
like... why is everyone always doing a full frontal assault, have the wrong weapons, not use fire appropriately, never flank, use cavalry inappropriately.....
miltary tactics in movies is usually abhorrent.
Given the fact that any language used in such a movie is going to be wildly unlike the language spoken in the time and place of the movie, I think that's a mild anachronism
Old English / Norman French etc would be practically incomprehensible to anybody.
There was an interesting TV show called Barbarians a few years ago where all the Romans spoke Latin but with Italian accents but they had the Germanic barbarians speaking modern German. Not sure if that would please anybody.
Well, this is going to bug me for the rest of my life.
Thanks.
I never gave it a single thought. But now I have been cursed with this knowledge and will fly into a fury every time I hear it now.
But thanks anyway.