Bows in Roman army

[Robert]

Getting back to the original statement, I would like to know on what assumption it is based in the first place, looking at the number of arrowheads found in a Roman context. The discussion now revolves around explaining why it may be so (dampness, for instance) A well waxed string stands up to dampness well (keeping it atop your sweaty head, for instance) but is soaked by heavy rain, does become waterlogged (thus heavy) and will lessen the performance of the bow a lot.

[Sean Manning]

Sean:
Your arguments are pretty persuasive and I have to admit this is all speculation on my part. It may be that cultural factors played a part in not adopting the bow, or that the bow was not effective sufficiently enough to adopt it as a weapon, or as I have speculated that the bow required too much maintenance and was not effective in many climatic zones. I did some research, and pulled an Osprey book called The Hun by Nic Fields. There are several interesting comments the author makes about the composite bow; first he states that the bow becomes quickly useless in relative humidity of 80% or more, and second that it does not produce a lethal wound against most types of body armor. He mentions that the English Bowman at Crecy had to store their bow strings under their caps to keep the humidity from affecting them and of course they were not using composite bows.
I also pulled the relative humidity map of Europe from the Internet:
http://www.intellicast.com/Global/Humid ... gion=sweur which shows that relative humidity is quite astonishingly high for the Mediterranean basin and northern Europe. Naturally, the climate of modern Europe may not resemble what ancient Romans were accustomed to, and since we don't have anyone to interview from that period we will never know. It is fun to debate it though with knowledgeable people such as you who have compelling arguments.
Vincent

Thanks Vincent. I agree that lots of prehistoric peoples seem to use bows only for hunting and not war.

From what I've read, you can design composite bows to deal with most levels of humidity, but changes in humidity (like taking a bow designed for arid plains into a rain forest or a thunderstorm) will damage them. And they are fiddly and fragile.

[Paullus Scipio]

One should also bear in mind that different weapons suit different circumstances - a javelin may lack the range of an arrow, but at close range is far more dangerous and 'armour piercing', hence effective, than any arrow ( due to its greater mass and kinetic energy). Slingstones are capable of penetrating flesh and creating concussion injuries through helmets and armour ( where arrows bounce off), and in some circumstances outrange bows. In general each had advantages and disadvantages, and if people with all three skills were available, then all three weapons were included in the Army's inventory of available weapons fairly indiscriminately.