Hold on here. There seems to be an assumption that all longbows had one of the infamous English longbowmen behind them. That's definitely not the case. Longbows were used all over Europe by many cultures but only the English had the freakshows. The vast majority of them had nowhere near the 150-lb draw talked about here.
The video in the OP is a comparison of bow design and, I guess, technique at equal draw strength. In those regards the Yumi is superior because it is both more accurate and hits harder. If you compare a yumi with a 150-lb draw to a longbow with a 150-lb draw it's still going to beat it. Now if they were talking about the "ultimate archer of the middle ages" then your points would have more validity.
I can't believe I'm arguing on the side of a Japanese weapon on these forums but there it is.c
We want to find out what the
best bow is, don't we? If we want to do that it isn't very clever to use the meditative Yumi(wchich it was used for) and compare it to a longbow whih was used to practice target shooting. Looking for the best bow we would have to look at the best bows available within the categories Yumi and longbow, not the average or most widely used ones. And like I pointed out before, you can't make a Yumi with 150lbs of draw weight. Arguing about accuracy, I don't know whether the Yumi was more accurate, yes the arrow does leave the bow with more accuracy, but a fully powered warbow would propel the arrow faster, which in turn would give it a more straight flight. Another thing about the accuracy though is the difference in sides of the bow on which to place the arrow, I shoot both types of bows(Yumi just a couple of times yet though) and I would say the arrow isn't as stable on the side of the bow as it is with a longbow, but that ofc. could be because I learned to shoot with a longbow instead of a Yumi.
BTW Another reason why the Yumi gets a + on accuracy is because when you release the string, you twist the bow itself away from the arrow, so the arrow barely touches the bow once it is propelled so the arrow doesn't drift off as much.
