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Message no. 1
From: Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: bow and other details
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 11:31:28 -0500
K said-
:> > Tell you all they want, I am NOT dealing in recurve bows here
:> > Alfredo which
:> > apparently you are (English Longbows are Recurve ... Bows as
:> > outlined in the
:> > books currently are NOT recurve, they are Compound style....massive
:> > engineering difference).
:>
:> I'm pretty sure English longbows are not recurve. I'll have to check. I
:> believe Turkish bows (IIRC, about the size of a short bow) are recurve
:> and out shoot English Longbows. It's been a while and I really don't
have
:> a source to look it up in anymore ...
:
:One last thing, and then the whole topic goes into the Kill File for me
here.

As it should have for the rest of us long ago...

But anyhow, I changed the thread title, so I hope you get this.
I did some research on catapults and other mechanical siege engines a
while back, and this really cool book form U Chicago I read was written in
1850 I came across detailed various types of bows as well as various siege
engines.
A bow with re-curve is any bow that, when unstrung, curves FORWARDS of
its handle. This is uncommon with wooden bows, because wood just isn't that
flexible, but is common with middle Eastern (including Turkish) bows. The
bows detailed in the book looked like a "C" when not strung, and a more like
a "D" (with the top and bottom left edges curling back forwards a bit) when
strung. English longbows were more or less straight when not strung,
according to this book- they may have curved forwards a bit, but at most
only enough to look like a "(", not a "C".
The middle eastern recurved bows detailed in the book generally have a
back (the part that faces the user) made of horn and a belly (the part that
faces the target) made sinew laid into layers of glue, rather like a modern
composite. Horn is very compressible and sinew is very elastic, so in order
to store the maximum possible energy, the "ends" of the bow are made to work
in the fashion of coil springs- they are relatively flat and thin, and
"unwind" their curve as the string is pulled back. The handle of the bow is
deep, and it does not flex- it could theoretically be made from any
material, as long as it was strong enough to take the strain of the two big
springy levers it had attached at its top and bottom. In the book, I
believe it was generally hardwood covered with sinew, but in Shadowrun, it
could be a hollow composite shell.

:Compound bows (pulleys and wheels and axles) are a recent invention

You right about compound bows being modern, but that is mostly because
its only modern materials and engineering that makes them practical.
Compound bows apply a lot of stress to a material that flexes only slightly
(in bow terms), and uses pulleys and cams to magnify that flex and apply it
as bowstring motion. Siege engines sometimes used similar principals.
Napoleon built siege engines- the technology is not that long obsolete.

:... ALL
:BOWS prior to them are basically recurve, included in this is the English
:Longbow.

Not according to this English guy in 1850 who collected bows form around
the world. He seemed quite impressed with these middle eastern bows as
being based on a concept that the English had not really taken advantage of.

:Remember, Recurve are single piece items and putting something into
:*THEIR* handle would alter their structural integrity, as the all portions
of
:that design are part of the flexation power involved.

Not really, no. From what I read, and the diagrams the book had, the
handle of a recurve bow doesn't flex any more than that of a compound bow,
an in fact looks rather similar (at least for the grip portion and a few
inches on either side there of). It needed to be a contiguous part to avoid
introducing concentrations of stress (the wood then tapered into the bulk of
the bow), but that can be dealt with with modern materials. OTOH, with the
invention of compound bows, recurve bows are obsolete- their performance is
better, and they offer better "user feel" because they can achieve that
performance with shorter draws and use cams to reduce "resting pull". The
force applied by a recurve bow when it was at full pull was HUGE, and
archers who used them used thumb rings to retain the string (which also
benefits range by giving a cleaner release, but again, is not really needed
with compound bows due to camming).

: Compound Bows (such as
:those used in SR at this point) have a multi-jointed structure in which the
:central hand grip does NOT flexate at all.

I wouldn't say " jointed", but I agree with your point. The metal or
fiberglass or whatever "arms" of the compound bow are the only part that
should flex and store energy. Their is a fair bit of stress on the middle
portion, but it is a static load.

Mongoose

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Message no. 2
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: bow and other details
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:41:32 +0200
According to Sebastian Wiers, at 11:31 on 25 Apr 00, the word on the
street was...

> Napoleon built siege engines- the technology is not that long obsolete.

More history lessons: crossbow-like siege engines were used as late as
WWI, to shoot grenades into enemy trenches. Unfortunately, those grenades
had a tendency to fly off the weapon in random directions, including into
the own trench...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"There are millions of people who've got nothing to say to each other,
and who do it on mobile phones" --Ian Hislop, on Have I Got News For You
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 3
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: bow and other details
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 22:32:29 -0500
On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 11:31:28 -0500 "Sebastian Wiers"
<m0ng005e@*********.com> writes:
<SNIP>
> The handle of
> the bow is
> deep, and it does not flex- it could theoretically be made from any
> material, as long as it was strong enough to take the strain of the
> two big
> springy levers it had attached at its top and bottom. In the book,
> I
> believe it was generally hardwood covered with sinew, but in
> Shadowrun, it
> could be a hollow composite shell.
<SNIP>

How can an induction pad be worked into such a grip without compromising
the integrity? And what materials would be used to make a bow with a pull
geared towards a troll firer?

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 4
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: bow and other details
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 21:22:15 -0700
Alfredo B Alves wrote:
>
> How can an induction pad be worked into such a grip without compromising
> the integrity? And what materials would be used to make a bow with a pull
> geared towards a troll firer?

You build it into the grip, just like a gun.

It *won't* compromise the bow anymore than it would a gun.

--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"If you loved me, you'd all kill yourselves today."
-- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya
Message no. 5
From: Simon Fuller sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: bow and other details
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 14:48:02 +1000
-----Original Message-----
From: Sebastian Wiers <m0ng005e@*********.com>
To: shadowrn@*********.com <shadowrn@*********.com>
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 2:30 AM
Subject: bow and other details



> The middle eastern recurved bows detailed in the book generally have a
>back (the part that faces the user) made of horn and a belly (the part that
>faces the target) made sinew laid into layers of glue, rather like a modern
>composite. Horn is very compressible and sinew is very elastic, so in
order
>to store the maximum possible energy, the "ends" of the bow are made to
work
>in the fashion of coil springs- they are relatively flat and thin, and
>"unwind" their curve as the string is pulled back.

English and other Western European recurves used two varieties of wood
glued together, that had the same effect as what you described.
Message no. 6
From: Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: bow and other details
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:58:54 -0500
From: Alfredo B Alves <dghost@****.com>

:<m0ng005e@*********.com> writes:
:<SNIP>
:> The handle of
:> the bow is
:> deep, and it does not flex- it could theoretically be made from any
:> material, as long as it was strong enough to take the strain of the
:> two big
:> springy levers it had attached at its top and bottom. In the book,
:> I
:> believe it was generally hardwood covered with sinew, but in
:> Shadowrun, it
:> could be a hollow composite shell.
:<SNIP>
:
:How can an induction pad be worked into such a grip without compromising
:the integrity?

Why would it be? The type of bow I was describing is only found in
museums!
As I said, making a bow's handle is just a matter of using a strong
material with no unduely localized stress. Genrally, the part midway
between the front and back would be minimally stressed, so you could put
some hardware in there. Hell, if you were hardcore about using a smartlink
on an antique, you could just wrap wires aroung the handgrip for your
induction link, mount strain guages (as simple as thi wires adhered to the
surface) on the arms, and strap the other computaional hadware on just below
or above the grip.

:And what materials would be used to make a bow with a pull
:geared towards a troll firer?

Supposedly magnesium has the best energy storage and flex recovery
for its weight, though titanium is also impressive, so the best modern bows
would (and do, afaik) use flexing portions made of that, with most of the
rest composed of composites and appropriately heavy hardware. Nothing in
that inherantly forbids mounting electronics and sensors where needed, or
poses any serious "scaling" problems for unsually strong characters.
For a troll, I'd go with what is being called a "complex" bow, or a
honking BIG (thick / wide armed) "compound" bow with some genrous recurve.
In either case, you'd have an abnormally long pull. I think simple wood
needs to be thin in section to acieve the flexability needed, so is limited
in the energy it can store, so you'd want something else. Even at 10x human
normal pull, you aren't begining to aproach the power that was stored in a
typical balista (nor does a trolls 1.5 meter pull exceeded that of a
ballista), so its not an unduely difficult engeneering task with modern or
"pimative" materials. Hell, you could just use spring steel, in a manner
similar to a (very large) crossbow!

Mongoose

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