Bow types and their pros and cons

Question

What bows are used for different situations and what makes them the best choice?

In my story a village is only easily accessible in one direction (Tall mountains around it and a fast river behind) with hills the path towards it. What would be the best bow to protect against an invasion and why? If the enemy took the time to climb the mountains that surround it would that bow still be the best option?

It's in the medieval era with no magic, the enemy opted for quantity over quality so they out number the village say 1000 to 200. But they only have basic swords and shields(no armour) , Plus they aren't very organized.

Also the village had time to prepare. Due to it being surrounded by mountains. It was excluded from the rest of the world only know by a few traders. So they had time to get comfortable. So let's say around five years. But they never slacked off training.

The enemy's main goal is to take over because of its geological defensive advantages. But will resort to more deadly means since a siege is impossible due to the river being freshwater. The village can use it for food and water. It is also the enemy's villages main source of water. So they can't mess with the river.

And the weather is frequently humid.

Answer 1

It's complicated

Start by forgetting pretty much everything you have seen in movies or the majority of computer and table-top role playing games. Movies and computer games concentrate on flashy visuals while TTRPGs focus on playable rules. Real life is more complicated.

Bows can be classified in various ways - by draw weight / purpose, by configuration and by stave construction. Looking only at the construction of the stave there are three types of bow from this period:

1. Self bow - this is fundamentally made of a single piece of seasoned timber, although some fittings may be made of other materials eg horn nocks. When people are referring to an English long bow, they are talking about a self bow that is, well, long. "Long" is not perfectly defined, but most evidence points to a stave that is as tall or taller than the shooter. (For more information, a number of Lindybeige videos are an enjoyable diversion.) The massive advantage of a self bow is that provided an appropriate section of seasoned wood is available, a skilled bowyer can carve it into a bow with a day or so of work (= cheap). The disadvantage is the length of the bow, which makes it unusable on horse back or from pretty much any position other than standing upright.
2. Composite bow - "is a traditional bow made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together, a form of laminated bow". These bows can achieve the same draw weight as a much longer self bow in a shorter length (sometimes with superior efficiency), making them usable from horseback and more easily carried in close country. Contrary to most TTRPG statistics, a composite bow and long bow with the same draw weight and efficiency have the same range and ability to inflict damage. The advantage of the composite bow is the aforementioned compactness. The key disadvantages are that they may not be especially weather-resistant, delaminating if they become wet, and they are much more time-consuming to construct (= expensive).
3. Laminated bow - this is any bow where different materials are laminated together to form the stave. Composite bows are arguably a subset of laminated bows. The same advantages and disadvantages apply to a laminated bow compared to a composite bow, with the expense and weather resistance being dependent on the exact construction method.

For each stave type there are different draw weights. Without getting too specific:

• target bows are frequently very low powered, only intended for competition or displays
• hunting bows are intended to propel an (often broad-headed) arrow with sufficient force to mortally injure an animal
• war bows are intended to propel an arrow with sufficient force to penetrate armour and injure or kill the person wearing it.

Potentially any of the stave types above or a metal stave can be mounted horizontally on a stock to create a crossbow. Crossbows shoot short, thick bolts instead of arrows - these have flatter trajectories at short range but become unstable in flight beyond 70(ish) metres. The main advantage of a crossbow is that it can remain at full draw indefinitely until it is time to take a shot (as opposed to a few seconds for a bowstring being held to the rear by the archer) and it can be shot from prone or kneeling positions. However, a crossbow is even more expensive than the other bow types and is much slower to reload - against 5 to 1 odds, this probably takes crossbows out of contention. (No, I am not going to discuss repeating crossbows.)

Attackers (aka arrow targets) It should be noted that the possession of shields by the attackers is very sensible of them but very inconvenient for the villagers. Shields are great for defending against low-tech missile weapons (provided that the shield-wielder actually holds it in front of them as they advance towards their enemies rather than holding it at their side like a fashionable handbag). A key question is whether they are also wearing armour or relying on their shields alone - see below.

So - with the terms defined, what's best for the village? Frankly, it depends on lots of factors. If they know that the attackers have shields but no armour then the villagers can use hunting bows instead of warbows, requiring less effort for each shot. If the climate is quite wet then self bows are probably a better choice than composite bows that will delaminate. Conversely, if it is generally dry but there is lots of climbing in close country then composite bows are a better choice. Regardless of the weapon choice, the terrain-based tactics are key - the villagers must make their stand/s on ground where a chokepoint limits how quickly the attackers can advance and the villagers must attack from multiple angles to avoid the shields.

Answer 2

You probably don't hold the Village

I like KerrAvon's answer a lot, but it mostly discusses bow technology. I'd like to address the tactical side.

It's a pretty tall order to defeat an enemy that outnumbers you five to one — and if any of the 200 villagers you mention are children or old people, the odds get even worse.

Even if this village is compact, it's going to be very difficult to build and defend any kind of perimeter with only 200 defenders. And once you're in close combat, numbers really do provide an advantage.

Unless you spend your prep time turning the villagers into well equipped, disciplined, Heavy Infantry (think Roman Legion), I don't think you're holding the village.

But that's probably OK, because...

The Enemy Can't Hold it Either

The word guerilla comes to us from Napoleon's invasion of Spain, when the mountain villagers harassed the most powerful army on the planet so thoroughly that the French were using columns of 1,000 men to deliver routine communications.

So go the guerilla warfare route. Spend your prep time stashing food and weapons in the mountains. Scout sites for camps. Train in moving quietly through the wilderness.

When the invasion comes, abandon the village — bring all the food, and burn all the buildings. Ambush the enemy column, but don't get drawn into a general engagement, just kill a few, and let the rest arrive at the empty husk that was supposed to be their objective.

Now hit every supply column that attempts to bring food, and every scouting party that goes looking for firewood. The first winter will finish them off.

Crossbow Tactics

The original guerillas would issue a single bullet to each soldier, because they knew they would lose any prolonged engagement. The plan for their ambushes went like this:

• Half the soldiers fire and charge with bayonets. The other half remain hidden.
• If the enemy breaks, you kill them all.
• If they enemy holds, the hand-to-hand group disengages, and flees back to the woods. A single volley from the hidden group discourages the enemy from following.

These tactics would translate pretty well with crossbows — like early firearms, crossbows are powerful, easy to learn and slow to reload.

So your villagers train with crossbows and simple melee weapons. The emphasis is on transitioning from sudden volley, to savage attack, to organized retreat.

Answer 3

If you must use a bow...

Use a high poundage self-bow with plate cutter bodkin arrows. Not many arrows can get more than an inch or two of penetration through a shield regardless of bow type, but a heavy warbow with plate cutter bodkin arrows can wound someone through a shield if they get careless about how close to themselves they hold it, or if their shields lack a boss. You also don't want to use composite bows in wet environments because they risk coming apart on you.

But preferably you would use Roman Manubalistas and Pilla

Bows are great as a battlefield weapon because of their rate of fire and mobility, but when defending a narrow pass like this fortifications, range and stopping power become far more important. No anti-personnel weapon prior to the invention of gunpowder packed more range and stopping power than Roman torsion spring weapons. By establishing a fortification blocking off the pass, your defenders can use light ballistas to take out enemy archers at nearly twice the range that they can shoot back while your fortifications can be used to block any arrows they try to fire at you if they do close the distance. And if necessary, you can also have a few heavier ballistas to threaten any attempt by the enemy to set up siege equipment.

This basically forces them to charge your position with ladders which is where the Pila come in. A pilum is very similar to a plate-cutter bodkin arrow, but instead of attaching the head to a thick wooden shaft, they would place a thin iron shaft at least a half a meter long behind the point. Because of this feature, a pilum's tip could punch a wider hole than the shaft allowing the shaft to pass cleanly through the hole. Modern tests of pilia show them to be able to stab a shield user through a shield even when held at full extension whereas arrows rarely get more than a few inches of penetration before getting bound up in the wood.

Because pilia can be thrown in rapid succession, once you force the enemy to charge your fortifications, each defender can kill one enemy after another with these thrown weapons because the shields are so useless against them. The enemies of Rome often used armor in addition to shields because of this exact threat, but since your enemies don't have that, they will get slaughtered.

Answer 4

You mentioned mountains surrounding village - you might use them instead. Forget about bows, if the pass to the village is narrow or steep enough defenders can easily win against attacker by using rocks.

No amount of shield or armor can help you against blunt trauma inflicted by a heavy rock falling on your head. Or rolling over you. Defenders can make a palisade on the hill and keep a sizeable number of rocks behind it. Or logs if rocks are harder to come by. When attackers start climbing up the hill, just let these rock roll down the hill at the attackers. Then, number of attackers is all of a sudden much smaller and you finish off survivors by any type of bow, preferably crossbow so everyone can help with target practice. (I do not recommend slings. You need quite a lot of training to be useful with that, and even then range isn't all that good. It is a great improvised weapon but when you have time to prepare crossbow is a much better alternative)

Additionally, you have mentioned a river goes through the village and then to the attackers. Have you considered that village can divert the river, killing all attackers without a single arrow fired? Yes, it might be a bit difficult to do it if the river goes through a deep canyon, but given several years to prepare it would be still quite doable.

Answer 5

The types of bows I'm aware of, besides construction which has already been covered, are:

1. Short bows, longbows, (both are self bows)
2. Recurve bows (often composite but can be made out of a single piece of wood)
3. Modern compound bows (which I think aren't an option)

So here's the issue, it takes a lifetime to be good enough with a bow to actually use it effectively in combat, or even hunting. So if you want your defenders to be good with them, enough to fight off hordes of enemies, you need a reason for them to train with bows from childhood. E.g there's a river right beside them maybe they do bow fishing, or hunt game, fairly believable. So what kind of game are they hunting, what materials are available for them to build bows with, put these things together and do a little research on ancient civilizations and bow tech and come up with a bow yourself. A little note, a cut-off village like that would have no chance of having lots of Iron or even copper. In Ireland, in the dark ages, a short sword was worth 40 cattle, that's a fortune today let alone in 900AD. Metal was too precious to be used in a way it might get lost, except in war. So stone or obsidian, which can easily be explained by having one of the mountains be a dormant volcano, for arrowheads. good luck with your story and just keep writing, I wish I did.