No great insights but an interesting short overview
Arnstad, H., Parkes, A C. (2021) Maritime military archery: Bowmen on European warships, 1000–1600 (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1592614/FULLTEXT01.pdf)
its a freebie...I'll take it!
Starts well. I will read more perhaps tomorrow as I will be rained off from the garden and bees.
Quote from: Imperial Dave on Apr 13, 2023, 04:11 PMits a freebie...I'll take it!
My thoughts entirely 8)
Interesting. The author ought to read Guilmartin's excellent works on 16th C Mediterranean galley warfare as he devotes a fair bit to archery, crossbows and early firearms - whilst one can argue that the "European" angle of the paper excludes Guilmartin's Ottomans, the Venetians were using the same composite bows at sea as the Ottomans. Of course, the Ottomans had the advantage of transferable archery skills from land to sea, which is why their European Christian opponents, other than the Venetians, relied on crossbows and firearms, and had to use infantry after excessive losses of the professional marines on whom they had previously relied.