A selfbow is a bow made from a single piece of wood. The English longbow is made from a single piece of wood. You might call it a "natural composite bow" to illustrate the heartwood/sapwood interaction, but it remains a selfbow made from a single piece of wood. By the way, this is what a compound bow looks like Uh, you mean the Mary Rose longbows like these:
Those aren't recurves, bro. They're mostly straight and some are slightly curved in the wrong direction (for an unstrung recurve bow) -from heavy use probably.
Here's a video of a dude using a 170 lb draw weight Mary Rose type longbow. Notice how the string never lies along the the tips of the bow, i.e. it's not a recurve.
The average length of a Mary Rose longbow was 6 and a half feet. You're saying that you don't see why it wouldn't be viable to use a ~150 pound draw, 6.5 foot tall bow on horseback? Do you not understand basic body mechanics? The only "evidence" for English horse archery at Blanchetaque I've seen is a single artist's rendition of the battle. In the same picture the horse archer is wearing full plate, holding the bow fully drawn on the right side of his horse with his left hand (which we all know is impossible from playing M&B), and charging headfirst into a line of French knights.
The only thing you got right here are the draw weights.
Reflex bow, notice how it curls into a C-shape unstrung.
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Compound bow.
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15-20 arrows per minute is total bullshit. 8 is around the upper limit for usefulness on a high poundage bow. Anything higher and you simply won't be able to fully draw or aim. Longbows don't turn you into Legolas.
1) Nobody said they can shoot farther and with more force with lower draw weight. The post you replied to didn't mention draw weight.
2) They aren't of the same design. Are you fucking blind, guy? If you think a Mongol or Turkish reflex, recurve bow is of the same design as an English longbow, you're beyond help.
3) Mongol/Turkish bows were capable of ranges and "force" similar to English longbows because they could have similar draw weights. The reason a much smaller bow was capable of similar draw weights to a larger bow is that they used more efficient materials and configurations (horn, sinew, different woods for different parts of the bow; recurved, reflexed).
There are also a lot of other variables that affect range and power beyond draw weight -arrow wobbling and vibration, smoothness of release, arrow size/weight/head-shape.
I suspect that's true for many topics.
Apparently longbow is to Europeans what katana is to weeaboos.
First: I made a type, you're right, I wrote reflex once instead of recurve because I was thinking about something else at the time. That's my bad.
Now, let us adress some of the bullshit you have spouted.
You have a modern bow picture: is it a compound? I don't know, you claim it to be, so I will believe you, I have never made nor fired such a bow, I have no interest in it.
The definition of compound is two or more elements combined. So, when I write that a yew longbow is a compound bow I'm pretty sure that I'm factually correct, which is the best kind of correct.
As to some video you linked, I watched it: my hopes for it being anything useful died when I watched them weighing it off center. Then he started shooting by pulling back on the string while hunched then he did some weird aim down then up shit. I don't know who taught him that, but that is gonna do wondrous damage to him and be horribly tiring and inneficient. He really needs to learn to bend the bow around himself not trying to pull back on the string. Anyway, back to your post:
I don't know what or who made that ugly looking POS bow they have there, but even it was an accurate recreation of anything used by soldiers between 1200-1500 in England, why would the string be touching the limbs? Being a recurve bow in no way requires the string to touch the limbs, and while in small bows with extremely pronounced recurves you will see the string sit on the limbs, it isn't a requirement or even desired since it kills a lot of the speed of the release.
Also, you linked a pic of an actual reflex bow unstrung. Like I wrote before, sure I made a typo, never meant to claim a longbow was ever a reflex bow: but that picture, lol: it's labelled turkish bow in the link, but it is clearly a korean bow. Anyway, from your post I am guessing you have little to no experience with bows or archery, and you are trying to make some point. Unfortunatly, except for pointing out my typo, all you have done is present some nice pictures and videos by people who if possible are even less well informed than yourself.
You wrote that noone mentioned drawweight when comparing eastern and western bows before me: well, I guess again this was a communication problem, since clearly smooth wrote that they were "easier", the exact word used. So, to me, to the only thing affecting the "ease" with which I draw the bow is the weight: so by "easier" I assumed he meant less drawweight. If he failed at expressing himself (because I dont know what else could make for more ease of use) then don't jump down MY throat.
As to your katana for weaabos comparison: no, I don't think the longbow was some godlike tool, but it must have been brutally effective or noone would have wasted their time on its use. The true miracle of engineering from the west that FAR outstrips the pretty crappy katana is the longsword. Its a thing of beauty, like the katana, but it is also functional on a battlefield, UNLIKE the katana. Although, it is easily put to shame by the true kings of the armoured battlefield, the Poleaxe.
Oh and "bro" your comment about the photos of the longbows: I am going to reply because I honestly think you weren't trolling: Those aren't bent with use, they are bent the opposite way to their strung shape, making them all recurve bows. Forget your ego, if you know anything about archery at all, look again at those bows, and see the truth there: Most of them have probably never been bent since they were tillered, never used. If they HAD been ben from use, they would have been discarded: They were on a King's flagship. Not some desperate defence somewhere where they had to keep using bows past their effective lifespan.
And last: the speed I quoted of 15-20 APM is accurate, despite your weird point about being effective. A typical armoured charge would take anything from 30 seconds to a minute. Lets take a short average at 40 seconds. Several sources believe this is how long the charge at Crecy lasted. I use this example because it is one of the few I could find several different people agreeing about the time it would take to cover the distance on a well fed and trained horse. Also lets go for the slow side on the APM, so 15 APM, 40 seconds, thats 10 arrows. Now, in GAMES and MOVIES, you aim at a man and shoot him. But that isn't accurate to what we know about archery being used on a large scale: It is believed from the pay records that there were 5.5k archers and 2k mounted archers (on foot of course) at the top of the hill at Crecy, but again we will take a lower number. So, 5000 archers, each firing 10 arrows in that 40 second charge. Thats FIFTY THOUSAND ARROWS. Do you really think that with an arrowstorm of 50,000 arrows each archer needs to pick a target and aim for him? Or would ranging the mass of charging men be enough.
Because I think ranging them would be enough. So, I call it effective.
Any other random pictures about things you haven't understood and points about stuff you haven't though out you want debunking or explaining? Let me know.
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