According to Henry Desmond Martin in "Rise of Chingis Khan and His Conquest of North China", using Meng Hung's book and several occidental sources, he mentions that the draw weight of the Mongol recurved composite bow was about 120 jin (a Song jin), which, according to Yun, equates to about 71.6 kilograms, or about 157-158 lbs. According to the same source, in a footnote, he mentions that the Jin imperial guards in Beijing carried bows with a similar draw-weight. These draw-weights seem to be nearly impossible draw weights for a recurved composite bow because from what I've read in Hildinger's "Warriors of the Steppe", the draw weights of war bows usually came around 60-70 lbs. and horseback versions were even lighter because it was less stable shooting on horseback than it was shooting on foot. Hildinger further criticizes the mention of 100 lbs. or even 140 lbs. attributed to the draw weight of recurved composite bows by certain authors and calls the authors who cite them as "having no practical experience with the bow at all". Hildinger's criticism and comments seem to make some sense and he seems to know what he's talking about, so I'm surprised that some primary sources actually contain these kinds of draw-weights. This is special because Meng Hung, I recall, was a general of the southern Song, and so had military experience and experience with weapons of war and all, so the criticism that the writers of Chinese primary sources having no military experience doesn't apply here. In light of all this info I came across and the contradictions, I've been hit with several critical (at least to me) questions:

1. Does this say something about the reliability of Meng Hung's work (I'm certainly not trying to establish an agenda here where I'm trying to bring down the reliability of Chinese sources in general, this is just a question)?

2. Is Hildinger's criticism of the supposedly excessive draw weights of recurved composite bows commonly being cited by authors ridiculous and wrong, or is he correct?

3. Did Yun do a conversion error (I doubt this, but I asked anyway just to check)?

4. Did Martin cite and quote wrong from Meng Hung's work?

I have a feeling many people here are going to answer number 2. If so, I ask that people's replies be backed up with reliable sources. Numbers and their justifications would be great.

What does it mean by 'draw weight'?

General_Zhaoyun, the draw weight of a bow is the force needed to draw it at a certain length.

In modern archery, this is expressed in english pounds at a common length of 28", which is the supposed to be the normal draw length of an adult male.

So, if you want to order a bow, you must ask say 50 pounds draw weight, which will be noted as 50#@28".

In Korean archery, as the draw (with the thumb) is longer, they give you usually a pounds value at 31".

For your info, the world record now is around 180 pounds. Let's say that there are few shooters that can handle 100# and only a handful in the world who shoot higher than 150#.

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On the weight of historical bows, reproduction of English warbows show an average of 120 pounds with the heaviest at 160 pounds. Many author disagree with these figures and pretend that hey should be lowered.

In China, I've heard (and seen) about incredibly high poundage bows, but these mammoth bows are usually exercise bows that were used to build up the strength of the archer and that had to be drawn in front of the judges in military exams. They were not used for shooting with an arrow.

I'll check in "Chinese Archery" the estimations made by Stephen SELBY for regular military bows and will keep you informed.

Yesterday I discussed the matter with S. Selby. The normative Qing era infantry bow had 75 lbs of draw weight and cavalry bow had 45 lbs draw weight.

According to the records of Russian Orientalist Father Iakinf the draw weight of Qing era infantry bow was 5 li (27.5 kgs) and of cavalry bow - 3 li (16.5 kgs). These data relates to Jiaqing era (1796-1820).

All data relate to the standard army bows.

Best ergards,

Alexey.

Note also that Meng Hung is talking about the bows of guards units (so possibly stronger to show their superority). regular Jin and Mongols often had multiple bows, so they were likely to have stronger bows for dismounted use even though they were cavalry (dismounting and engaging in a firefight was a surprisingly common Mongol tactic). Also Meng Hung is in the process of pointing out that the Mongols were a formidable army and that the Song needed to improve their army, so some exageration is not impossible.

According to the military system of Qidan State (917-1115) soldiers of regular troops should have 4 bows and 400 arrows for a person. I think there were different types of bows and arrows.

Korean cavalry had 2 bows per unit - one was composite bow and the second was wooden bow. In Korean sources we can see mentioning of dismounted cavalrymen with their bows.

Best regards,

Alexey.

Thanks for the replies guys.



Sources please?

If this is true, so the seemingly unrealistically excessive draw-weight of the Mongol and Jin recurved composite bows found in 12th-13th century Chinese sources can be "justified" by the following:

1. Meng Hung was probably exaggerating a bit, as suggested by tadamson, so give or take, about 20-30 lbs (which is still alot though).

2. Because of the fact that steppe warriors and archery-oriented soldiers of antiquity in general had more than 1 bow and different bows used for different purposes used to draw different types of arrows and with different draw weights, that the figures recorded by Meng Hung was probably one for use by infantry-type recurved composite bows, hence the high draw-weights.

3. That modern estimations may be only concurrent with modern bow-drawers, who may have been less strong and apparently less adept at archery than did soldiers of the past, who practiced physical skills more often because of necessity while many today do it almost solely for sports.

Richard Hardy, Longbow, a social and military history

p53 and 54 : estimation of a draw weight from an arrow spine at 150 pounds, hypothesis that longbows were between 80 to 160 pounds (1975)

p 209 and after : testing of reproductions of the Mary Rose bows. Based on reconstructed bows, various formulas are given to check the stiffness of the wood, etc, so the real artifacts can be given a strength based on their length, width, girth, knots, etc. Also 300 arrows were measured to estimate the draw weight.

Finally eight Mary Rose bows were estimated at 30" to weight the following :

98#
101#
110#
115#
124#
136#
137#
185#

"The latest one is so thick that it seems likely it would break at 30", so a safer draw of 28" would reduce its strength to 172# " (1992)

Ah, ok, good.

120jin hmm.
A song jin is equal to 1.2 modern jin or about 0.6kg.
So Yun was correct.

This article is about Song dynasty archery.
http://military.china.com/zh_cn/history2/0...0/12253806.html

It states that Archers/crossbowmen made up 60% of Song forces.
That Song army valued arm strength above all else.
All soldiers were tested by drawing bows.
the record for soldiers were 270jin
howeve noteable Song generals like Yue fei and Han shi zhong could draw 300jin.

It does not state the draw strengh of the bows used in war.
However it does state what range each units are used for.

At 400-500m The bed crossbow starts firing.
At 300m crossbow starts firing
At 200m archers start firing


How much draw strengh is required for a bow to have a effective range of about 200m.

draw weight is only one factor in the possible range of a shot. most recurve bows over 60 pounds of draw weight at an arched shot can easily go 200 meters (219 yards). effectiveness is varied especially considering most shots even by expert archers were not necessarily outright fatal. i have bows ranging from 50 pounds to 110 and i find my 60 pounder and 75 pounder consistently has the longest range (part of the reason being that its difficult to draw 110 pound bows to its full draw length which if even missed by a centimeter reduces the speed of the release)

The English longbows taken from the wreck of the Mary Rose range in draw-weight from 70lbs all the way up to 140lbs (source: The video, Archery--Its History and Forms by Mike Loades).

It's also worth noting that the skeletons of English archers have been examined, and they were actually slightly deformed from years of archery practice with heavy bows. It would be interesting to see if any Asian archeological sites reveal similar evidence.

John F. Guilmartin, in his classic (and now revised & updated) book, Gunpowder and Galleys--Changing Technology & Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the 16th Century, readily accepts draw weights of 150lbs for the composite bows used by Ottoman naval archers at Lepanto in 1571.

As for Hildinger's comments, I think it makes sense to postulate that horse-archers used lighter bows than foot-archers, but for him to contend that bows of 100lbs or more were never used at all goes against the available evidence.

I agree. The draw weight is actaully a less important than how much of the energy is actually transfered into the arrow itself when fired. And for that, both the qaulity of the bow as well as the proficiency of the archer counts.

We use to laugh behind the back of guys who gets this 100 pound bows and then budges upon release. Leading to both decrease in energy in the arrow as well as accuracy.