Richard Lemmens website
Copyright:
Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike
This text content and maps on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license license. This means that: adapting the content is allowed; using the content for commercial purposes is not allowed; sharing and redistributing the content with others is allowed. If you do any of the above, you must attribute your copy to its creator, Richard Lemmens, and make sure any alterations and distributions are licensed in the same way as the original. More info about Creative Commons licenses can be found at the Creative Commons website.

Warmatrix

War Matrix - Composite bow

Early Bronze Age 3000 BCE - 2200 BCE, Weapons and technology

Mendbayar at full draw
Mendbayar at full draw
Archers are always striving for more range and accuracy. When the self bow had reached its maximum length and could be powered up no further, people started to develop 'backed' bows, where the wood or bamboo was reinforced with a backing, for instance sinew. This slows down the straightening of the bow after a shot, increasing its efficiency. The famous English longbows used in the Hundred Years' War were backed longbows.
The next step was to build a bow made of of different parts and materials. This led to the traditional 'composite' bow, made of wood, horn and sinew, glued together. This type of construction packs more tensile strength in the same length. Composite bows are often 'recurve' bows, where the tips of the limbs bend forward, opposite to the general backward curve. This also increases tension strength, energy efficiency and gives greater velocity to the arrow. The composite recurve bow was and still is very popular in Asia.
A backed longbow is about as long as the archer stands tall and can can shoot over 250 meters, though effective range is about 80. A recurve composite bow usually is somewhat shorter. It can shoot over 350 meters, though effective range is about 100. The longest shots ever recorded were fired with recurve composite bows and came close to a kilometer, but all required very light flight arrows that could do almost zero damage and had no accuracy at all. At close range, the increased power of backed and composite bows made them able to penetrate medium armor, something that self bows could not do.
Disadvantages of composite bows are that they are more expensive and deteriorate when exposed to moisture. Therefore self and backed bows remained more popular in areas with a wet climate. Even in Asia composite bows are usually carried in protective cases.
The first composite bows were 'angular' bows, invented probably somewhere in central Asia in the 3rd millenium BCE. The design quickly spread to south Asia and Egypt. Steppe nomads like the Scythians perfected it and it remained their primary weapon for several millennia. Around the 4th century BCE composite bows were improved further by stiffing the tips, increasing their power. This later led to the famous Mongol and Turkish bows.