https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE
too much awesomeness in one video!

It's a kind of paradoxical thing, that even beastly longbows won't get through plate yet the longbow was still extremely good in it's day.

I lean towards it being a volume thing. To take Agincourt as an example- if you have 5,000 or so archers and each can loose 12 arrows per minute, then you have 60,000 arrows per minute flying into the armoured mass. The French here had about 10,000 knights, so you're looking at 6 arrows per knight for every minute of the battle. The french were very densely packed so it's safe to assume most of these would have hit a target. Imagine taking one of those 160lb longbow shots every 10 seconds whilst you are trying to trudge through deep mud. That's just an average too, I imagine the front row would be getting peppered at a far faster rate. The blunt trauma and exhaustion of the physical battering would be bad enough, and after 10 or so arrows the chances are one has probably found a gap or weakpoint and put you out of action.

I imagine sling can achieve higher KE because the bow uses a fair bit of energy in snapping the limbs back, which must have a fair bit higher mass than the projectile. With a sling the only loss is in air resistance and swinging the weight of the sling.

Also just being a vastly different motion might be better for getting KE into it. The bow is a growing force applied over 30 inches or so- the sling only uses one hand but a much longer stroke, and potentially a more consistent rather than growing force, in such a way that the area under the curve (so to speak) is greater.

Bring Luis on the show and have him sling at it

AncientCraftwork wrote on Aug 30^th, 2019 at 5:30am:


I have the feeling that Tod would be reluctant to pay for the airfare.

But in a pinch I'm sure CuriousAardvark or any other English, Scottish or Welsh slinger would be happy to perform!

Actually, I might go ask Todd if he would be interested in doing 'anachronistic' weapons tests with his crossbows too.

I imagine a heavy sling stone hitting someone straight in the face would have a good chance of killing or paralysis. Head, neck and legs would all be brutal places to be hit with a large sling stone even with plate on. Especially if it's multiple stones hitting you a minute.

JudoP wrote on Aug 30^th, 2019 at 4:16pm:

try to hit w/ 1 hand and then try to hit w/ 2 hands without the use of the legs or abs.

It's not as simple as that. in archery one arm applies force in a concentric and isometric contraction and the other mostly concentric while slinging or throwing (the right way) the muscles of one leg does concentric contraction , the torso does eccentric then concentric then follows the arm which does eccentric then concentric . stored energy in the non throwing arm is also used to rotate the other side.

the eccentric contraction of a muscle produces more force than the concentric, thus I find it difficult to make a comparison like that.

the F-d curves are as you said but you can't make an F-d curve in slinging the same way you do to a bow.
I don't know which one is more efficient (output/input) slinging might have lower efficiency but have input high enough that the output surpasses that of the bow making it more effective...
and don't forget in archery you first put energy in the bow and then the bow makes it kinetic. it's chemical->dynamic->kinetic
slinging is chemical->kinetic one less energy transfer.
but again it's more complicated than that .

Sarosh wrote on Aug 30^th, 2019 at 5:36pm:


I don't doubt it's complicated- like I said I'm speculating-broad strokes, not calculating. You could calculate a bow by just looking at draw weight integrated over draw length and forget all about muscles, a sling is probably very difficult, but the principle is the same. Longer stroke = more energy in, likewise more force = more energy in, minus losses.

I don't think not using abs or legs for 2h vs 1h really proves much. Maybe just that using two hands is optimal for recruiting the maximal amount of force from the rest of the body. If I wanted to output maximal force from any action- most of the time I'd be doing something using two hands (or two legs), whether that be deadlift, bench, hitting something with a sledge hammer etc. All the highest force actions I can think of use two hands (if upper body related) and attempting these one handed is not effective.
Now clearly other actions which don't maximise force are sometimes better suited to 1h, eg throwing of medium-light objects. Here 2h is clearly not suited to the action... but when higher force is required (for heavier objects)- people start to throw with both hands.