Late Bows in warfare

[erik]

Hi. Anyone knows any good information or sites about bows such as Crimean tartar bows, Ottoman bows, and the hardest for me to find info about: Mughal bows. As the Mughals were turco-mongolian descendent, were their bows a further development of the mongolian bow or, were they inspired by someone else? Some sources calls them Indo-Persian bows and some moghul bows.

Saw some post about the golden hordes weapons on this forum and that bow cant been what they used, it dident even have string stools and looked like an older verision of a composite bow (magyar for example) Anyone knows more about the golden hordes bows? Can they have used bows similar to crimean tartar bows? To me they looks like a mix of a Mongolian and ottoman bows.

I dont know much about this but find it interesting about the latest bows used in war before they were all changed for guns.
Especcily how the Mongolian bow developed in their diffrent regions after the split up of the nation

Erik.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Greetings Erik, welcome aboard

[erik]

thanks

[erik]

Very nice forum u got here.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Thank you

As for your question, unfortunately my technical knowledge is not that good yet, but I am sure there must be people who can reply you.

[Subu'atai]

Not me, I'm a gunman, not a bowman

[erik]

Steppe history and now one is interested in bows?

[Temüjin]

Nov 27, 2008 6:19:44 GMT 3 erik said:

Hi. Anyone knows any good information or sites about bows such as Crimean tartar bows, Ottoman bows, and the hardest for me to find info about: Mughal bows. As the Mughals were turco-mongolian descendent, were their bows a further development of the mongolian bow or, were they inspired by someone else? Some sources calls them Indo-Persian bows and some moghul bows.

Saw some post about the golden hordes weapons on this forum and that bow cant been what they used, it dident even have string stools and looked like an older verision of a composite bow (magyar for example) Anyone knows more about the golden hordes bows? Can they have used bows similar to crimean tartar bows? To me they looks like a mix of a Mongolian and ottoman bows.

I dont know much about this but find it interesting about the latest bows used in war before they were all changed for guns.
Especcily how the Mongolian bow developed in their diffrent regions after the split up of the nation

Erik.

well, first of, i don't know of any book that deals with all types of Steppe bows you mentioned at all, most books are about English longbows & crap.

secondly, Mughal bows are very interesting. as i'm at the moment readign mostly about Mughals, i've already gathered that Mughal bows were indeed unique and advanced, i've read for example that Mughal bows were less effective (less range, faster worn-out, etc) in the southern regions of India which are more humid than the north, which was also a reason for the slow expansion southwards. i've also read that Mughal bows were superior to the bows used by Indian peoples like the Mahrattas which had inferior bows compared to the Mughals. Mughals also had all-iron arrows which were specifically designed for anti-elephant warfare. definately an interesting topic but at the moment there are no studies at all about "soft" (as opposed to swords etc.) weapons of india.

[erik]

Iron arrows, interesting. Must have been heavy draw weight on those bows. What i have read was the ottoman bows was the best ones made before bows were stoped beeing used, but they used pretty light arrows, and made less use of their mounted arhcers than the mughals.
maybe the diffrence was what they were used for. no elephants to send shafts into.
both are heavy reflexed, and seems pretty similar. Think some Mughal bows are really extreme in their reflex
some pics of ottoman, crimean tartar and mughal bows.
anthromuseum.missouri.edu/grayson/islamicarchery/islamicarchery2.shtml

About the English long bow I dont understand whats so special with them, sure they made a great use of them tacticly but the bows it self were nothing but a long straight pieace of wood, that lasted real short, new ones were needed very soon. Some longbow arhcers say u cant even aim for long as u loose power quickly then. werent meant to aim with anyway though.

[erik]

I read that the Mughals couldent use their own elephants in attacks becuse of their artillery, made them too nervous, but worked good for the general to get a good view over the battle.

[Temüjin]

elephants like horses needed A LOT of training to be used in warfare. in india there was an abundance of elephants so there was no reason not to use them but certainly the use of elephants drastically declined after the coming of the Turco-Muslim invaders and their cavalry and particularly after the introduction of firearms. however there are accounts of elephants absorbing up to 84 arrows and more.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Nov 29, 2008 22:49:45 GMT 3 erik said:

Iron arrows, interesting. Must have been heavy draw weight on those bows. What i have read was the ottoman bows was the best ones made before bows were stoped beeing used, but they used pretty light arrows, and made less use of their mounted arhcers than the mughals.
maybe the diffrence was what they were used for. no elephants to send shafts into.
both are heavy reflexed, and seems pretty similar. Think some Mughal bows are really extreme in their reflex
some pics of ottoman, crimean tartar and mughal bows.
anthromuseum.missouri.edu/grayson/islamicarchery/islamicarchery2.shtml

Yes, of course, as Ottoman miniatures show us, bows and arrows were an imprtant part of cavalry equipment, but the Ottomans did not use horse archery as much as the earlier Turks and Mongols. Yet, achery was still popular in both military and civil life. Indeed, bows were actively used until the early 19th century.

[Subu'atai]

Nov 30, 2008 1:05:46 GMT 3 Temüjin said:

elephants like horses needed A LOT of training to be used in warfare. in india there was an abundance of elephants so there was no reason not to use them but certainly the use of elephants drastically declined after the coming of the Turco-Muslim invaders and their cavalry and particularly after the introduction of firearms. however there are accounts of elephants absorbing up to 84 arrows and more.

A lot of work pulling 'em out if the elephant survives

[Temüjin]

the other one from the example took over 100 and both survivd. Akbar even had a monument erected for his favourite elephant. elephants were favoured by commanders so to overlook the battle but a really big disadvantage of this was that they made formidable targets for snipers and more than one battle was lost because of this.

[Subu'atai]

Snipers? You mean a big ballistae-type weapon aimed at it? Only thing I would trust against an elephant (kinda like a bazooka ;D )

Iron-bows specifically made for combatting elephants? How can you actually make a bow for killing elephants? Besides, you could always just poison the arrows maybe? =/