rhys, I was taking schlackoff's stupid statement to its conclusion.

real figures for bows as weapons of war were about one bolt even two minutes
for the crossbow, and about 6 shafts a minute for the longbow. the crossbow
had a net effective range of about 30 feet, the longbow about 100 yards.

rhys
Date: 10/14/2004 11:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id:

On 14 Oct 2004 12:28:53 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote:

sure, schlackoff, a 350# draw crossbow can fire twenty bolts a minute, while
a
100# longbow can fire off nearer to 100 shafts a minute.

I don't think even Robin Hood could manage to pull, aim and release in
0.6 seconds, JAX. That would be premature archeration.

Try "six per minute" and not sustained, either, as it is very tiring
to volley arrows. If you wanted to "shoot your load", a modern longbow
can loose up to 14 arrows in a minute (see

http://www.channel4.com/history/micr.../longbow1.html

but if you got six a minute for 20 minutes at say, Agincourt or other
real-life battles where the longbow was the primary offensive weapon,
you would be doing very well indeed.

R.