Something that annoys me is "bodkin" arrows in Crpg. From what I've read, these were constructed from cheap, soft metal and were not the most effective at piercing armor. They were used for quantity>quality reasons, to increase the chances of hitting unarmored targets. I think they should be cheap and shitty, rather than the epitome of arrows as they are currently.
http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-we-do/research/analytical-projects/armour-piercing-arrowheads
The broadhead and bodkin where of similar value in materials tbh....the BOWS on the otherhand, well, they were imported to England, not native in any way, and so many were needed several parts of Europe suffered terrible damage to the topcover of their forests, infact some monarchs begged the Pope to ban the export of the bowstaves to England. England on the other hand imposed a tax on ANY ship wishing to do business in ANY British port had to bring a number of bowstaves (this went up or down) per tonne of goods.
The longbow cannot be valued enough tbh, it was manditory for all men to practise weekly, and they would start at around age 6, by the time they were 18-20, they could hit a man 8 out 10 times at 200 paces. And that was the average ones.
Realistically: NOT every Frenchman, Knight OR Man-at-Arms, would be able to afford the most cutting edge technology in armour, and some would have only had leathers with a buckler.
Realistically: Most english archers would have had an even more ragtag collection of armour and weapons, EXCEPT that their longbows would have been top fucking notch. They all had decent longbows since the english were realists: Its AWESOME to charge into combat on horseback with your shiney sword, but its archers that win battles. Boring, but you dont die.
