Which ancient battle weapon had a longer effective range, the sling or bow and arrow? Did the slingers really outrange the archers?

Both Roman and Greek writers say that the sling could out-range the bow. The advantage of range is repeatedly stressed. This could, it seems to me, be because the sling had a greater effective range, arrows losing their power to air-resistance after a while, and falling out of control onto their target, whereas a sling stone might build up a more dangerous speed just from falling. The effective range of slings seems to be in excess of 360 yards. Assyrian reliefs show slingers attacking cities from further away than the archers. Perhaps this is because the archers were used to shoot straight at defenders on the walls, while slingers dropped stones into the city, or perhaps it is just another clue to the greater range of slings.

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/nikolas.lloyd/weapons/sling.html


Personally, I find a range of 360 yards a bit inflated. Perhaps 150-200 yards, at most 250 yards, would be a more typical effective range used in battle. What is your opinion? Do we have people in this forum who can sling with an euipment similar to the ancients that far?

Most historical accounts praise the sling for being able to outdistance the arrow. I think it largely depends on the type of sling and the technique.
 The standard technique seemed to be an underhand release after one full swing. That would indicate a shorter sling. I've never been able to go 200 yards with that, but, A. I can't everyday like they could, and B. My life doesn't depend on me being able to do it.
Anyone else?

This is very difficult to answer as it depends on many things, like:

• slinging projectile
• slings (length, material)
• skill of the slingers
• maybe arrow
• bow (quality, power)

Most of this is not known. There are some ancient reports that the range of slingers was superior to that of the archers. So probably at least in some situations the range of the slinger was superior.

My slinging range is (at the moment) 50 meters. Yureks is about 350 meters. Your's is probably somewhere in the middle. And the modern world record with a stone is 440 meters. We do not know what the range of the Archaeans, Balears, Cretes, etc. was. If they had intensive training their whole live they might have had ranges of the current world record or more. Others might have had little training so they can use the sling as backup weapon. These might have had a range of 100 meters.

And regarding "effective range"... that depends on what you want achieve. At least some current tests of bow arrows against chain mail and plate armor show that the arrows barely can penetrate a bit.  (We do not know the power of the ancient bows, so such tests are a bit tricky.) This is at shooting ranges of less then 10 meters. Can these then penetrate good armor at 50 or 100 meters? Probably not. But they still can be usefull, e.g. to lower the enemy morale or to get lucky shots on unprotected areas. If a troop of slingers managed to get a load of lead glandes onto an enemy unit 400 meters away I believe it gave them a military advantage. A lead glans which falls down from 50 or 100 meters certainly does hurt.

Zwiebeltuete

I often pratice hitting a cliff 170 yards away, reaching that distance isn't that hard after a couple of years of pratice.  My maximum range is 250 yards.  

I never doubt that the slingers in battle of the past could reach 360 yards.  Even 500 yards is not suprising.  Knollslinger could throw a 1/4 mile easy with his leather boot lace sling.

I weight only 128 lbs. :-[  And I don't even sling everyday.

On http://www.grozerarchery.com is written that you can shot light arrows with their 90-120 lb bows over 300 meters. Their bows have traditional recurve form with old or modern materials. This is probably what we can assume as upper limit for possible shooting range for the ancient bow. (For using a 120 lb bow with a suitable shooting frequency and number your name has probably to be Arnold.)

Zwiebeltuete

Does that mean an archer would get tired more quickly than a slinger? :-/

I have read that the training time of slingers out last that of the archers in an ancient army.

The farer you want to get with the bow the more muscles you must have. That is simple physics. 120 lb bow means that you have to hold 54 kg with one arm and pull 54 kg with the other arm and shoulder. You have also to be able to hold 54 kg with your fingertips. That is a lot of stuff. For me it is not so easy to hold a fourth of that. I have read somewhere that the archers might not have used full power to tire less and therefore be able to shoot more arrows in short time.

I asume with the sling to get far a small part of it is muscles and a big part dexterity, but people who can actually sling far can probably tell better what is required.

Zwiebeltuete

also, for extremely high powered bows, another method of shooting was used.

i have read accounts of mongol double recurve bows(probly the wrong term) of which each rider used two bows:
1. approx 120 lb draw, which you layed on your back and braced the bow with your feet, pulling with both hands.  used for range and power(mostly range)
2. and a lower powered bow, maybe 60 lb draw, which was shot using the more traditional method.  used for hunting and war.

both kinds of bow had different arrows to suit the bow.  from what i have read, there were longer arrows for the more powerful bow, and shorter ones for the smaller bow.  they had different kinds of tips, based on what they were shooting at.

wrote on Apr 26^th, 2006 at 4:09pm:

also, for extremely high powered bows, another method of shooting was used. i have read accounts of mongol double recurve bows(probly the wrong term) of which each rider used two bows: 1. approx 120 lb draw, which you layed on your back and braced the bow with your feet, pulling with both hands.  used for range and power(mostly range)

Sounds supiciously like the spanning procedure of a crossbow. The Mongols didnt use crossbow, but the Chinese.

i'm sorry, i re-read that and realized what it looks like it says.

let me re-phrase.

the archer lays on his back on the ground, putting his feet up in the air, and bracing the handle of the bow accross his feet, pulling back on the string and arrow with his hands, firing by letting go with both hands.  

effectively making a half human crossbow, using the archer as the stock.

sorry for the bad use of words. :-[

thats ok  ;D it was clear you where talking about a footbow ;)

there is a very nice scene in hero btw that shows these bows in their fullest glory

What has to be taken into account is the difference between the physical power of the weapon and the warrior themself and the use of it in a battle.

Concrning the physical power of bow and sling it is always the power of human muscles. That makes it difficult to compare these weapons. But instead of the mere power that is necessary to hold the bow the sling requieres rather the skill to get a good momentum of the whirling movement. I have the impression that technique is the clue (though a basis muscle power is necessary anyway)
So it seems to me that we perhaps compare different physical skills which are not that easy to compare.

The other comparative aspect is the use of different weapons in different takticle situations. We make our slinging experiences as single shooters. But in ancient times slings where used mostly by light troops who acted as a tactic unit. Alone they would have been lost. As a unit taking massiv enemy troops under "fire" the mere mass of bullets put on a solid corps never failed at least its psychic effects. The advantage of slings referring to its use as mass weappons was their low price in comparison to the very sophisticated bows and the availibility of projectile. Even in hopeless situations you had it nearly everywhere under your feet. Under the  circumstances of a massive use of slings the slingers wheren't able to throw always up to their personal range records like archers,too.

At Marcus Junkelmann (Die Reiter Roms III) I found the following figures:
arrow and sling shot are supposed to start with a speed of about 50 m per second. A 60 gr sling shot then has an energy of 75 joule, a 50 gr arrow of about 62 joule if shot with a composit bow of 27,8 kg tractive power. Junkelmann accepts a sling range upt to 350 m and a bow range up to not more than 200 m. But as far as it appears to me these figures and assumptions are not proved by experiment, so far.

funda iucunda

Why did Junkelmann choose a 27.8 kg bow? The data based on this trength seems to be consistent with other sources.

Zwiebeltuete

Found this while doing research. It's from the poem King Edward and the Shepherd from the 14th cent.

 " I have slyngs smort and goode
 The best archer of ilk one
 I durst meet him with a stone
 And gif him lefe to shoot
  There is no bow that shall laste
 To draw to my slynges cast"

 That pretty much says it right there.

@zwiebeltuete

Junkelmann describes the reconstruction of a sassanid bow with a tractive power of 28 kg. Another author had tested bows of about 50 kg. But for acuracy the "lighter" ones where much better (Die Reiter Roms III). May be that a clue to the range question is the acuray at a long range. A given projectile might fly on a long distance but fails its target. Another might not fly that far but hits always within its shorter range. The ancient and medieval authors supposedly where not interested in a athletic "benchmark" of range but in the use as a weapon which means that the user could trust in it that it hits the target. If used against massive troops this was not very essential. It was just necessary to hit somebody among the big crowd that was a target as whole. In a duell acuracy on distance decided.

Concerning Junkelmanns figures for slings I have the impression that these - like at other archeological authors - are not based of own slinging experience. M. Korfmann is the only one of whome I read that he had practice. The situation seems very different to that of the bow.

funda iucunda

Yeah, I found it! I have found an excellent source about the ballistics and effective range of ancient slingers! Very detailed, very scientific, knowledgable both in terms of physics as of the historical use of slings. Really leaves no questions open. Unfortunately, it is in German, but the author is also one of the renowned international authorities on ancient catapults:

It is:  Bauten und Katapulte des römischen Heeres  von Dietwulf Baatz, Stuttgart (1994), p.294-302

I will give only briefly the results:
The author differs between clay, stone and lead projectiles. Lead has an "enormous superiority" in the military use due to a couple of favourable ballistic properties which are a function of its much higher density compared to clay and stone. Lead projectiles have "considerably smaller" air resistance due to their smaller width. Therefore they suffer in their flight from less loss of energy  and fly thus much farther. Moreover, despite a longer range they hit their targets with a higher energy than than clay or stone projectiles.

The maximal effective ranges of the different projectiles go like this:
Lead projectiles:  20 - 100 m "dangerous for armoured troops"; effective for unarmoured troops up to 200 m
Stone projectiles: 85 m
Clay Projectiles: 65 m

"Stone-and clay projectiles cease to be practically effective at distances over 100 m, but they are effective against at shorter ranges, especially against unarmoured soldiers. Their effectiveness increases the shorter the range."

PS: The author also touches the effective ranges of bow and arrow, albeit only in reference to findings of other autors:

The aimed shot with an 26 g arrow the range is 100-120 meter. Medium sooting range on the hunt is 30-50 m. The shot energy of the sling is somehat higher than that of the bow, as the speed of the sling projectile and arrow are comparable, but arrow usually more light than sling projectiles. Considering a projectile speed of 75m per second for both sling and bow and arrow, the sling has a trow energy of 112,5 Joule, whereas the bow 30-80 Joule, very strong bows up to 96 Joule.

Does he have in that article a better air drag model than in the 1990 article?

Btw.: To have a better sense of the projectile energy, small caliber guns (.22) have about 100-200 Joule.

Zwiebeltuete

We'll have to look this one up! Interesting to limit the effective range of lead projectiles though - the main reason why lead glandes are far superior to less dense ones is that they experience very little reduction in speed due to aerodynamic drag. The effect is so pronounced that a lead glande hits with pretty much the same force regardless of distance thrown.

Matthias

100 meters?  That's short!  I can double that anyday!  and I only sling pebbles!

I guess it depends on the definition of effective range.  Does the author mean pin point accuracy?  or just stopping power?

If I had a scanner, I would have scanned the whole article by now and uploaded it, but unfortunately I have no yet. Perhaps somebody else can do and mak it a pdf, I think it is very much worth the effort.

Air drag is calculated: R = Cw x D/2 x V squared x Q

R : airdrag in Newton (Luftwiderstand in Newton)
V : speed of projectile (Geschossgeschwindigkeit)
Q : width of projectile, seen from the ballistic curve, m squared (Geschossquerschnitt, aus der Bahnrichtung gesehen, m zum Quadrat)
D : air density, kg/cbm (Luftdichte)
Cw : resistance value, a mere multiplication factor (dimensionless number), depends on the shape of the projectile (Widerstandsbeiwert, ein reiner Multiplikationsfaktor (dimensionslose Zahl), haengt von der Form des Geschosses ab


As for the range issue: The author makes a point of differing between maximal range, sports record ranges as he calls it, and militarily effective ranges. His key consideration is that, the longer the range, the smaller the hit probability. "Already small angle deviations at throwing change the ballistic curve over long distances considerably", as the winddrift increases. That, of course, applies only to individual, but not to mass targets, as he stresses. As I already said, the author is more complex than I can reflect here, he tries to consider things from every angle, thats why I would recommend the article so strongly.

As for maximal range: The author gives some numbers, but he makes again a point that the maximal ranges which he presents are a function of the values he has defined. With a projectile of 40g, throwing speed of 75m/s (=112,5 Joule), a throw angle of 40 degrees, air density of 1,14kg/cbm and a resistance value of 0,4 the maximal ranges are:

lead 352 m
stone 232 m
clay 200 m

At these distances, lead hits home with 42% of the initial 112,5 joule projectile energy, stone with 23%, and clay with 19%.

-> Lead can not only be thrown the farthest, it also has even though it travels longer in the air, the highest impact.

The ranges which some of us attain are admirable. I measured the ranges of my throws during the last weeks. I sling pebbles of a weight of about 40 to 70 gr. normally with a sling made of sisal or flax of 90-100 cm length. Sometimes I attain 100 m, no more. I wonder how to get better results (about 150 as the recent balearic records or even 200 m as Tint). I doubt that just more muscles would help. Is there a clue, specific technique or so?

That is the same as in the Saalburg-Jahrbuch. See my comment about that at http://www.mbsks.franken.de/slinging/slinging.html#BaatzSJ

Zwiebeltuete

Good critic! I think you are largely right that Baatz' estimates of the effective range are rather on the conservative side. I noticed the same tendency in his discussion about catapults, too. This is however due to him placing special emphasis on two things: First accuracy and second impact. Since he is primarily concerned with small targets, the maximum effective range would rise if we consider large masses of people which is an allowance he actually repeatedly makes. Also, a further increase of effective range could be allowed for, if we argue for other values, as you do in your critic. Here again Baatz stresses the model character of some of his aasumptions like air density.

The good thing about his article is that it really gives us the means to come to our own conclusions, since his analysis is strong in demonstrating the interplay of all relevant physical and military factors.

Haha,
So nothing can be as simple as:
Shoot a good bow. Sling a glande. See which goes further.  ;D

Seriously though, good work/research guys. Eleatic Guest, you may wish to register, it only takes a second and is COMPLETELY free.... There's just been a lot of tension around guests lately.......   Thanks for the info.

zwiebeltuete,

I read your site: good work. Your interpretation of this etruscan pouch is interesting. Do you have good pictures of these slings carved in the etruscan thombs? I thought that they show twisted but not braided cords.
How do you manage the small and tiny lead glandes staying in the open pouches?

funda

I have only a photocopy of the article, but to me it looks like braided.

I never had slipping something flat or long through split pouches. What does slip are spheres. The best slipping projectiles I so far had were chest nuts. These are not only mostly spherical but also have a slippery surface.

Zwiebeltuete

the copies I have of the pictures from etruscan tombs are either good. The slings could be braided or twisted or braided and then covered for protection by leather or flax what might look like it where twisted. I'm in search for better pictures, without success, so far.

Is there anyone among us who has accidently visited the "tomba dei relievi" in Italy or who has good fotos of its interior?

funda

o.k as slingers we all will agree that in pure range the sling out distances the bow
but in hunting ranges the sling and the bow are about the same fifty yards as a max effective range
this come from my expernce of hunting with both
the truth is i prefer under twenty yards with both

If we're talking maximum range here, 500 yards and beyond have been rocorded by Turkish archers, 300 easy. Can the sling make that? Very likely, yes, but it would take strength and skill that few of us have time to perfect today. I'll also say that the draw weight for English longbows has been known to surpass 150 lbs, Turkish recurved bows going up to 200 with thumb ring. Modern hunting bows don't even come close to the ancients' in power.

The sling probably outranges the bow as far as aimed shots are concerned, but can it match the indirect fire capabilities?

Subotai_Ba_Atur, did you mix up the statement
" The sling probably outranges the bow as far as aimed shots are concerned, but can it match the indirect fire capabilities?"
meaning it to say the opposite, or did you do that on purpose?

i apologize for seeming to hunt you down for the purpose of disagreeing with you, but the development over time seems to agree that the bow is better for short ranges and the sling for longer.  also, it is my own judgement that the bow and the sling are both excelent weapons for the purpose of indirect fire.

No, not the opposite. I was talking about maximum effective range. The fact that lead shot is blunt means that it requires a good deal more force to be lethal than do arrows.

Archer volleys were fired at around a 45 degree angle. Can a sling bullet maintain lethality when fired like that? I'm not dissing slings, just trying to cllarify what we're talking about. Are we putting post-Roman bows into the equation here?