Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#61

Post by scott_s » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #48

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When archery was essential to war, it was still only "stand and loose" - foot archers typically planted stakes in front to ward off cavalry, or would be on hills or in front of woods. Basically stand still, shoot the buggers, run and hide if anyone charged. As for hunting, that is extreme slowness, and perfect accuracy because you won't get a second shot, and if you move at all before loosing the animal moves too. Hu…

"Stand and loose" is an ok strategy but "Ride and Loose" let the Mongols capture more territory in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. Hardly the "only" strategy.

The Commanche were also particularly effective at it. The combination of their horse riding and archery skills made them more lethal than the US Army, until the revolver was invented. Before the revolver, firing on horseback was a non-starter because reloading was almost impossible; a Commanche could fire dozens of arrows in the time it took one reload. I read about this in the book "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S. C. Gwynne.

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#62

Post by lutorm » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 9:25 PM UTC

sandworm wrote: post #44

As someone who owns a bow (old bowtech patriot) and has spent countless hours in the woods with bows, this guy is a gymnast, not an ancient archer. (1) Archery has never been about speed. You don't need to be a hunter to appreciate that hunting does not involve any bouncing around like a woodland sprite. (2) Arrows are not bullets. The do not kill quickly. Shooting at people five or ten feet away is suicide. Even if…

I don't know much about archery, but it seems Mongol-style horseback archery would differ a lot from longbow-style stationary shooting in terms of speed and being able to shoot on the move (just like snipers are very different from cavalry in that sense when it comes to rifles.)

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#63

Post by vacri » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #35

Gargoyle888 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an archer of any rank. But my take on this is that he's trying to represent or reproduce the skill of archery when archery was essential to war and hunting. Great skill in an Olympic competition is certainly an impressive achievement but it may be worthless outside the clearly defined rules of competition. Between your 120 bowman and this guy, which one wins in battle and which one brings home fresh meat for…

When archery was essential to war, it was still only "stand and loose" - foot archers typically planted stakes in front to ward off cavalry, or would be on hills or in front of woods. Basically stand still, shoot the buggers, run and hide if anyone charged. As for hunting, that is extreme slowness, and perfect accuracy because you won't get a second shot, and if you move at all before loosing the animal moves too. Hu…

It's weird that you don't see the benefit of being effective while moving when your rebuttal includes 'run'. Not to mention that there are plenty of situations where stakes/hills/woods as a static defense don't apply - if you're attacking; if you're sieging; attacking a town, fighting in the streets; if you're not taking part in a large set-piece battle; so on and so forth. If you're part of a small patrol and encounter the enemy, you fight them then and there, no time to plant stakes or move the site of the battle.

Likewise, you need to be able to move around as the battle progresses. There's no point standing behind your stakes if the enemy you need to put pressure on is 200 yards away over a meadow. All the zen-like calmness in the world and impregnable field position isn't going to help you if the enemy doesn't come within range.

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#64

Post by BashiBazouk » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 9:47 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #61

paulgerhardt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stand and loose" is an ok strategy but "Ride and Loose" let the Mongols capture more territory in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. Hardly the "only" strategy.

The Commanche were also particularly effective at it. The combination of their horse riding and archery skills made them more lethal than the US Army, until the revolver was invented. Before the revolver, firing on horseback was a non-starter because reloading was almost impossible; a Commanche could fire dozens of arrows in the time it took one reload. I read about this in the book "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S.…

Samurai as well. Very skilled horse archers.

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#65

Post by vacri » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

sandworm wrote: post #44

As someone who owns a bow (old bowtech patriot) and has spent countless hours in the woods with bows, this guy is a gymnast, not an ancient archer. (1) Archery has never been about speed. You don't need to be a hunter to appreciate that hunting does not involve any bouncing around like a woodland sprite. (2) Arrows are not bullets. The do not kill quickly. Shooting at people five or ten feet away is suicide. Even if…

In war... archers always fired en mass

There are more kinds of battle in war than set-piece battles between large hybrid armies.

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#66

Post by BashiBazouk » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

Tharkun wrote: post #8

regularfry wrote: post #5

I'd love to know the draw weights of the bows he's using. One of the differences between the sort of archery he's doing and the standard recurve competition shooting you'll see is that the latter is much slower, more relaxed, with very defined, conscious aiming. The idea is to do precisely the same thing, with your whole body, over and over and over again. His aiming is completely instinctual. Because of the way the…

Try hitting a moving target at 40 metres. You'll probably miss. He'll probably miss as well, but he'll have a significant edge being able to shoot while moving closer towards the other archer. Kyudo is a very nice and sort of meditative experience. I'm guessing it's the same for other forms of stationary archery. It'll really teach you how to work your bow. Slowly and methodically. No one who practices kyudo expects…

The samurai to which kyudo is descended from certainly expected to win battles with it...

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#67

Post by yellowapple » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 10:41 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #21

None of these are forgotten archery techniques. Some of them are acrobatic, some are silly, some are unreliable. (Some fall into more than one of those categories.) Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit. If you want to learn archery with both speed and accuracy, you could do worse than to find your local SCA group. A Royal Round is a set of six arrows…

> Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit.

I'm pretty sure his point is that "Modern Olympic" archery isn't as useful for hunting or fighting, given that it's been heavily optimized for stationary shooting.

The acrobatic/silly/etc. things he's doing in the video while using a bow aren't the technique he's learned; it's the actual bow-work itself (the binocular sighting, tweaking which side of the bow the arrow is on, being able to move quickly from unarmed to shooting, using a thumb-release technique, moving the bow itself to add arrow velocity, etc.) that - from what I gather - allows him to maintain that sort of demonstrated accuracy despite the non-archery things he's doing in the meantime.

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#68

Post by yellowapple » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 10:50 PM UTC

timw0j wrote: post #13

regularfry wrote: post #5

I'd love to know the draw weights of the bows he's using. One of the differences between the sort of archery he's doing and the standard recurve competition shooting you'll see is that the latter is much slower, more relaxed, with very defined, conscious aiming. The idea is to do precisely the same thing, with your whole body, over and over and over again. His aiming is completely instinctual. Because of the way the…

I imagine that in combat (as bows were used when these techniques were "lost") you didn't have to be bullseye-accurate. Close to where you were aiming is often good enough.

On the other hand, he manages to be bullseye-accurate (as evidenced by the size of many of the targets he managed to hit - including hitting other arrows mid-flight).

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#69

Post by jmelloy » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 11:01 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #14

zaroth wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not even that but unloading with less than a second after spinning around from facing the other way? It actually puts Legolas to shame.

Well, and they CGI'd the most of the movie's Legolas' "arrows" as well. http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/06/game-of-thrones-has-cgi-in-...

Every arrow fired on Arrow is CGI due to crew and actor safety.

Re: Lars Andersen: a new level of archery [video]

#70

Post by Zibulon » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 11:52 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #67

dsr_ wrote: post #21

None of these are forgotten archery techniques. Some of them are acrobatic, some are silly, some are unreliable. (Some fall into more than one of those categories.) Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit. If you want to learn archery with both speed and accuracy, you could do worse than to find your local SCA group. A Royal Round is a set of six arrows…

> Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit. I'm pretty sure his point is that "Modern Olympic" archery isn't as useful for hunting or fighting, given that it's been heavily optimized for stationary shooting. The acrobatic/silly/etc. things he's doing in the video while using a bow aren't the technique he's learned; it's the actual bow-work itself (the bi…

IMHO, he is shooting a bow that's too light for hunting or fighting. I'd say he shoots below 30 pounds, which works for what he does, but nothing else.