Glued Linen Armour- a simple test

[Dan Howard]

That is interesting, Dan, and for a rough comparison Blyth describes Scythian arrows of the Persian war period, with reed shafts, as weighing around 15-25 g and initial velocities of the order of 48-66 m/sec, in order to have a range of over 200 m. I suspect that Molloy and co may have used solid shafted arrows rather than hollow reed ones, hence the arrows are too heavy, leading to the lower initial velocities.....(????)

The article goes into some detail about how they determined the optimal arrow weight for their reconstructions. The lightest arrows that were used were 22g and these had a velocity of 42m/s with Bow 1. The heavier arrows would be needed to have any chance of punching through armour or shields.