Archer

The mechanized ranged weapon of the medieval era

The crossbow is a ranged weapon that lays a bow horizontally on a stock, the tiller, and holds the drawn string until a trigger releases it. Unlike an ordinary bow, it can deliver great power after relatively short training rather than a lifetime of practice, and so it is often called a democratized weapon. In medieval Europe it was widely used as an infantry weapon and as the mainstay of wall defense. Early prods were composite, of wood, horn, and sinew glued together, but from the 14th century the steel prod was introduced and greatly raised the draw weight and the penetration. The bolt, or quarrel, that answers to the arrow is shorter and heavier than an ordinary arrow and delivered strong penetration at close range.

The composite bow of mounted archers

The Mongol bow is the composite recurve bow developed by the nomads of Central Asia, the key weapon that upheld the Mongol Empire's conquest of the world. At about 100 to 120 cm it is fairly small, but thanks to its composite build, horn and sinew layered over a wooden core, it delivers a power rivaling the Western longbow. With a maximum range of over 300 m and an effective range of about 150 to 200 m, what was decisive above all was that it could be shot in any direction, front, back, left, or right, from horseback. With the Mongol draw, drawing the string with a ring on the thumb, the rider loosed quickly in succession at the gallop, and with the Parthian shot, turning to shoot behind while feigning flight, he broke a pursuing enemy.

The iconic weapon of the English archer

The longbow is the representative great bow of medieval England, a large bow about 180 cm carved whole from a single stave of yew. It looses arrows with the strong force of an 80 to 150 pound draw (about 36 to 68 kg), and a skilled archer boasts the astonishing speed of 10 to 12 shots a minute. Its effective range reaches about 200 m and its maximum about 350 m, and with the bodkin head it pierced mail. The true power of this bow lay not in one man but in hundreds shooting at once to darken the sky with an arrow storm. In the Hundred Years War the English longbowmen broke the numerically superior French knightly armies again and again with this massed fire.

A heavy-draw longbow built for battlefield use

The war bow is a heavy military longbow of medieval England with an especially high draw weight, of 150 pounds, about 68 kg, or more. It is a self bow, the whole bow carved from a single stave of yew, and made thicker and stronger than an ordinary longbow. With the narrow, pointed bodkin arrowhead made to pierce armor, it could punch through mail and, at close range, even relatively thin plate. To handle this tremendous draw weight an archer had to train for years from childhood, and as a result of that lifetime of training the skeletons of archers bear clear marks: curvature of the spine, enlarged bones in the left arm, and deformation of the shoulder and finger joints.

A heavy steel-prodded crossbow of the late Middle Ages

The arbalest is a heavy crossbow of the late Middle Ages that used a steel prod in place of the earlier wood-and-horn composite, boasting the greatest penetration of its day. The steel prod's draw weight ran to hundreds of kilograms — far beyond drawing by hand — so it had to be spanned mechanically with a windlass (pulley device) or a cranequin (geared device). It could pierce even plate armor at an effective range of 200 m and beyond, but spanning took so long that its rate of fire was only one or two bolts a minute. To offset this, it was paired with a pavise-bearer, behind whose great shield the crossbowman sheltered while reloading. It shot a short bolt (quarrel, about 30–40 cm) and required little training, so even conscripts could be made battle-ready quickly.

A bow with outward-curving limb tips for greater power

The recurve bow is a bow whose tips, the limbs, curve away from the archer when it is unstrung. This reverse curve makes the limbs hold force out to their very ends as the string is drawn, storing more energy than a straight self bow of the same length and shooting a more powerful arrow. This lets the bow be made short while keeping its power, so at about 100 to 150 cm long it suits handling from horseback. Historically the finest recurve bows were composite bows, made of horn, wood, and sinew glued together, of which the Korean gakgung is a prime example. The bow used in Olympic archery today is of this very recurve type.

遊擊手 · Ranger — A tracker who has become one with the wild

The ranger is a tracker, scout, and hunter class master of wilderness and nature. Wielding bow and daggers, often fighting alongside an animal companion (typically wolf, hawk, or bear). Specialized in reading animal tracks and sensing nature's changes, rangers are perfect for wilderness exploration and enemy reconnaissance. Tolkien's Dúnedain rangers led by Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings established the iconic archetype of secret protectors of villages from the wilderness. Featured in every fantasy work in various forms — D&D's Ranger class, Diablo's Demon Hunter — also possessing herbalism and wilderness survival skills as a versatile profession.

弓手 · Archer — A specialist in long-range precision strikes

The archer wields a bow as primary weapon, striking enemies precisely from range. Through keen eyesight, focus, steady breathing, and sharp finger control, archers can hit fast-moving targets from a hundred paces. Frequent heroes of literature and film — Tolkien's Legolas, Robin Hood, and others — typically wearing light leather armor and excelling in mountain and forest terrain. Eastern martial arts venerate the master archer as 'shenshi' (divine bow), and English longbowmen were the decisive military force of the Hundred Years' War. Magical variants like enchanted arrows and elven bows are common.

Large standing shield for crossbowmen

The pavise is the great rectangular shield favored by the crossbowmen of 14th- and 15th-century Europe, a defense so large that, at 120 to 150 centimeters in height, it could hide almost the whole height of a man. Its body of wooden planks was covered with canvas and a ground of gesso on which the arms of the city or the figure of a saint were painted, and it narrowed toward the top and bore at the bottom a small prop so that it could be set up and stand on its own on the ground. Because the crossbow took long to span again after each shot, a great shield to cover the whole body of the shooter during that time was needed, and the pavise filled that place. Tradition holds that its name came from the Italian city of Pavia, and it first took root among the crossbowmen of Genoa and Lombardy, but soon spread across the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia, leaving its most famous image as the row of shields set in front of the wagon fort of the Hussite Czech infantry.