Archery suffered by the Romans

[Conal]

Hi

I have recently read that a skilled horse archer was able to fire in say the space of 10 seconds, first a high angle shot, then a mid and low angle shot, timed to arrive at the target at the same point and time. This being so a group of 1000 archers could land 3000 arrows in a single shower and 18000 in a minute coming in at different angles on an eqivalent number of Legionaries !

This is awsome firepower, provided the arrows would have some penetrative inpact .... which leads me to my question .... has anyone or does anyone know of any studies on teh affects of arrows on Legionary kit ?

Conal

[Antonius Lucretius]

I found that a while ago.
Tests of several weapons, not including arrows unfortunately, against different armour types.

[url:3vzdfr96]http://www.dayton.net/~lawson/weaponsvrsarmor.txt[/url]

[Johnny Shumate]

Plutarch in his biography on Crassus described shields and armor penetrated by arrows.
Johnny

[Dan Diffendale]

Plutarch in his biography on Crassus described shields and armor penetrated by arrows.

I believe in his Life of Antony that Antony's soldiers overlapped their shields while in a very tight formation and the double-thickness of the shields stopped Parthian arrows, while a single shield did not (Witness: Carrhae).

[Johnny Shumate]

If I remember correctly, Antony's campaign was met with total frustration and left behind a high Roman body count. Is this the one where they hugged the mountians of Armenia?
Johnny

[Dan Diffendale]

Indeed, you remember correctly. Its one claim to fame was that it was not annihilated like Crassus'...

[Conal]

Thanks guys.

[Alexandr K]

Hi,
some time ago, on the old RAT, we've had a discussion about the effectiveness of arrows on Roman armour. I've argued, that normally the arrow could not penetrate roman defensive kit. I haven't found the discussion on the new RAT, so look here:

http://p200.ezboard.com/fromanarmytalkf ... 1310.topic

Greetings
Alexandr

[Dan Howard]

Yep. An arrow penetrating mail was the rare exception, not the norm. There are plenty of ways to incapacitate a Roman host with archers without penetrating armour.

[Praefectusclassis]

That thread is on RAT v2 though: [url:2rgqh4ml]http://www.romanarmy.nl/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2034[/url]

[Alexandr K]

Thank you Jasper. I haven't been able to find it. I should cure my blindness :oops:

Alexandr