this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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Props to the movies that shout the "Loose!" command
As I understand it, that's still not very historically accurate. It was not really a thing for archers to nock and loose together like they do in the movies.
Never really made sense to me, loose all the arrows at once and then give a break between volleys? Gives everyone a chance to hide behind their shield, and then advance when it's clear. Unless volleys are perfectly timed between multiple rows of archers.
Random arrows flying constantly never gives the enemy a chance to feel safe since it's a constant barrage, and there's no wasted time for the archers needing to wait for the command to fire.
The purpose of the flight of arrows was to blanket the area ahead of an army advancing to meet the front line of your army. It was mathematically, the only way to have a chance at killing a large number of targets, as being accurate at that range was nearly impossible, even for the best longbowman.
So they went with numbers over precision. This also allowed them to effectively slow down the pace of the advancing frontline if every time they loose their arrows, they all have to stop and take cover.
It has a tertiary goal of likely killing any wounded still on the ground. It's not a technique you'd use when your forces have fully engaged as it'd kill just as many of your units as the enemy's.
Finally, it could be used in strategic encounters to force the enemy to stagger/get out of position if you could cause just one part of their advancing line to stop, it'd essentially break or weaken the enemy's frontline.
I have shot a longbow, you can be pretty accurate given the target is a large group of people. Sure, I can't realistically hit that guy there with the red hat. But I can probably got one of the guys near him.
If all the guys have armor and shields, the chances of hitting anyone in a spot that matters is a lot snaller
Well yeah, this is why you shoot more than 1 arrow.