Time period weapons vs time period armor

[Mark Hygate]

This raises a question I've been meaning to ask. How heavy a bow would be required to have the same penetration capacity as a javelin?

Well, Olympic javelin throwers manage about 360 J with their relatively light javelins. Only the roughly 240lb Manchu bow supposedly used to win a contest in the 18th century could hope to compete with that. Of course, such numbers require a full run up for the javelin thrower.

I studied/competed with javelin at school to county (UK) standard, which is way off Olympic and years of selfless devotion. However I suspect I could compare well to the average ancient soldier at my peak, certainly. Whilst I feel it very unlikely that the average thrower would get anywhere near such a high standard (Olympic), equally I would think that the standard 'light' javelins of the ancient world - ie those used by Greek psiloi, Roman velites/lanciarii and cavalry (lancea), et al would probably compare similarly in weight (and not talking pila).

Why not perhaps consider the overall question from the other way - particularly if a not unreasonable assumption can be made from a sociological standpoint?

We have the example of one of the earliest horse archer nations in the Parthians and, on most open field battles a very simple partition into an army composed of only two troop-types - who both engaged against the Greeks and Romans and others at the time. Their armies often seemed to consist of only light 'peasant' horse archers and heavily armoured (neither with shields) 'noblemen' cataphracts.

Considering the normal relationships with between nobles and peasants, it does not seem unreasonable that the Parthian cataphracts would be relatively impervious against the average peasant group (and thus some reasoning behind the troop-type development). Thus, at battle ranges (ie sufficiently far away to engage with arrows, lobbing them in from distance, so as not to be caught) I would not expect bowfire to be that effective at all. Thus a consideration that a covering of mixed mail and scale may be perfectly effective at range.

Note - I am not talking about close range, maximum power, flat trajectory fire from the strongest man available with the highest quality bow possible.

Certainly that would make seem to make sense when reading the Anabasis or accounts of Carrhae. Arrows are only effective when hitting exposed portions (ie those not armoured) and at close range. It's for this reason that we don't, for example, suddenly see the Romans (let alone others, particularly in the West) making sudden changes to bow-armed troops. This only happens when the additional range becomes essential (ie against cavalry armies/raiders) and those who also only fight at distance.