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Composite bow was one of the Warfare good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | |||||||||||||
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Good article, but you didn't mention anything about the string, such as what it was made of and how it is attached to the bow.
Not bad, but I believe there were problems with the glue in wet weather. -- ???
Someone (68.1.175.249) has added a comment to the effect that fish glue is less sensitive than hide glue to moisture. This is unreferenced and I propose to remove it. Richard Keatinge 09:19, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
My nitpick is in the bibliography, actually. The books are titled "The Traditional Bowyer's Bible".
The English in here is rather bad. The article is choppy, sometimes repetitive, and is often vague in addition to having some grammatical errors. Cleanup is required.
As noted above, there should be some sources, perhaps someone with knowledge of bows and a reference book could add additional information.
Micaelus 04:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I have had a go, adding and editing quite a large section from Bow (weapon), though there is plenty of room for further cleanup and improved references. Richard Keatinge 16:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there actual evidence that Asian nomads invented the bow? If this is merely "conceivable," the assertion should be restated in less specific terms or else dropped. PhD 14:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Good question. I don't think anyone has ever suggested that anyone else invented the things, but nobody wrote the details down at the time. Can you suggest a better phrase? Richard Keatinge 21:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I have added some notes of caution about bow performance. Kooi concludes that "The results of this research further indicate that the development of archery equipment may not be a process involving progressive improvements in performance. Rather, each design type represents one solution to the problem of creating a mobile weapon system capable of hurling lightweight projectiles. While a composite bow displays considerable design and technological innovations when compared to a self bow, it will not necessarily shoot an arrow farther or faster. Performance criteria such as those applied by Pope and Hamilton ignore the fact that a good or bad bow may only be gauged within the context of the functional requirements of the archer." I have added some comments which I hope may put occasional over-enthusiastic claims into a sound engineering perspective. Richard Keatinge 12:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm puzzled by the sentence regarding asymmetric bows: "To some extent, this combines the power of a longer bow with the convenience of a shorter one." Technically speaking, a longer bow will be more flexible (and hence have lower draw weight and therefore less "power") than a shorter bow of the same width and thickness. I wonder if an explanation based on tillering or reduced stress on the material is more appropriate. Otherwise, I am thinking about removing or rewording that sentence. - Jtma (talk) 12:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
The main article on bows has this "modern reconstruction of a historical composite bow", if that helps. --Grimhelm (talk) 14:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
...The bow in the image is made of fiberglass. I was going to leave it until we can get an image of a genuine item. But I'll leave it in for now. Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone have a reliable source for the claims of high poundage in the lede: Some Mongolian composite bows are known to have been able to produce a draw weight of nearly 160 lb (72.5 kg).? - CompliantDrone (talk) 15:48, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Is it time for a nomination? Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk) 10:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
This article might make GA-status this time round, if sufficient work is carried out to bring it up to the required. Much of the article appears to be at our about GA-level, particularly the latter parts of the article, starting with the Origins and use section. However, the WP:Lead is clearly inadequate, as is the Construction section. A number of the references are merely raw web links; and no attempt has been made to "correctly" cite them. Pyrotec (talk) 19:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC), but I did "clean some up" as I reviewed the article. Pyrotec (talk) 08:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
There are also technical terms that are undefined (or un-linked) and sometimes not discussed; and there seems to be little discussion of strings and none of arrows. Pyrotec (talk) 07:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
There also seems to be a lack of consistency regarding the scope of this article: much of the article is written from a historical perspective and it mostly covers natural materials, but modern-day composite bows and glass-fibre construction seems to have been thrown in as a "after-thought" in a couple of places. If is intended that the article is to cover both historical/traditional and modern composite bows, then it needs to be made consistent, i.e. construction needs to include glass-fibre lamination and glass-fibre (perhaps carbon fibres) need to be included as construction materials. Pyrotec (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm now going to work my way through the article section by section, but I'm going to leave the WP:Lead until last. The Lead is, at best, a disaster, so its going to need a re-write - I also suggest that guide WP:Lead is studied, but I will come to that later on.
....stopping for now. To be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 20:59, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
At this point I'm putting the review On Hold. Pyrotec (talk) 09:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Many thanks for your useful comments. Before I address them I must apologise for the vagueness on several issues. The fact is that I don't have the information to make these points more definite, and as far as I know nobody else does either. This applies to most of the dates, to the geographical areas, and to either effective or maximum ranges. Also to strings; anything can be used, and no string type is consistently associated with composite bows. We might write something on arrowheads, since metal ones often do survive and the "Scythian" trilobate type is well-recognised, but even then we don't actually know which type of bow shot them. The development of composite bows happened over a very long time, in a very large area inhabited by people who generally wrote very little of anything and nothing about bows, and the archaeology of organic remains is minimal. Whatever Attila the Hun and his predecessors were doing, they weren't writing down details of bow construction! Secondary sources are either equally vague, or give the best details available of specific archaeological finds. I've included a few specific details - possibly too many, as I don't think they're generally suitable for an encyclopedic article. I might move the text about the Qum-Darya bow to the references, if you agree. In the American case, while a very few bows have been preserved as archaeology from before European contact, we generally can't give any more precise indication than the fact of a certain bow type being in use when the Europeans arrived and started writing things down. And I don't think that a detailed chronology of the American frontier is appropriate or even useful here. As for the modern materials, I don't think we need to say anything about them except that they have been used to make cheap imitations.
Anyway, thanks again, all further comments welcome, and I'll get to work, tomorrow I hope. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria
The article has been much improved, I'm therefore closing this review.
In the light of the discussion above and recent improvements, I'm happy to award this article GA-status. Congratulations on bringing the article up to GA. Pyrotec (talk) 19:02, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I have removed "The composite construction can be an asset in regions where suitable wood for self bows is on short supply, but woods which can stand either draw stress (such as birch) or compression stress (such as pine) but not both are abundant. Woods which would not make a decent bow on themselves can be successfully combined to make a bow." which seems to apply to laminated bows rather than to composite bows made with horn. The word "raids" was added to "incursions"; I can't see that this adds anything. A list of possibly or definitely Turkic peoples who did indeed use composite bows has been added; we don't need a complete list here and the sentence already mentions Turkic peoples. Finally, the arms of Savonia have been added, featuring a drawn recurved bow. I don't see any reliable evidence that it was in fact composite and while this image might possibly be of interest, I'd suggest that a good reference for the fact of it being a composite bow, and for some comment about its use in the area, might be better. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:16, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I am surprised that there is no mention of the increased energy storage potential in composite limbs. The effect is well described in Clarence Hickman's 1935 patent 2,100,317[1]. In short, if you take a 2x4 piece of wood, cut it into 2 1x4's, bend them circularly to the point of almost breaking, and glue them together, here's what happens: the laminated 2x4 will support 50% more weight before breaking while supporting a load that is trying to un-bend it (it breaks easily in the other direction). It will also bend 50% further (in one direction only) before breaking. The laminated 2x4 will store up to 2.25X more energy. Hickman achieved over 2X energy storage in reality. Here's a great article that was pointed out to me on a message board: [2].
The 1997 article by Kooi and Bergman [1]is not a reputable source for the claim that there is little practical benefit to composite bows, other than smaller size. They only mathematically modeled non-composite bows, and from the text, they are clearly unaware of the effects of laminating highly stressed layers. They attributed the flight distance records of composite bows only to improved materials, and show a clear lack of understanding of composite materials. On the other hand, they never claimed to be experts in laminated materials. Taking their quote in their conclusions as evidence that there is little benefit to composite bows is a poor choice, IMO.
Recently, archery forums have talked a lot about "Perry reflex", as well. As an example, user avcase [3] describes a 6-lamination limb, where two sets of three layers are first laminated in low stress, but high curvature. These two curved limbs are then forced straight and laminated together, creating a straight limb with 2X the energy storage potential (in only one direction) compared to a self-bow of the same wood. This shows that beneficial stress in composite bows can be used in any desired shape. Hickman's patent described this very well. I would recommend citing Hickman and describing this important benefit of composite bows.WaywardGeek (talk) 10:39, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
http://www.manchuarchery.org/did-qing-ban-archery-mongolia This site seems to be arguing that the idea that the Manchus banned archery in Mongolia is just a myth.
The section on analogous bows in the new world ends with "The full three-layer composite bow with horn, wood, and sinew does not seem to be recorded in the Americas, and horn bows with sinew backing are not recorded before European contact" which seems to be a bit misleading. Yes there was a lot that wasn't recorded before European contact but sinew-backed bows made of buffalo or bighorn sheep horns do seem to have been well known to tribes of the Great Plains and American Northwest with a number of surviving examples in various museums. I know for certain that there are a couple of horn bows at Idaho State University. 97.121.9.8 (talk) 00:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
composite bows are depicted far earlier than the 2nd millennium, e.g. Uruk Stele, c. 3500 BCE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C2:23C2:F201:E8BE:BE94:6A5E:8FC3 (talk) 13:24, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
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This seal is from NW Afghanistan indus site and displayed in schoyen gallery MS 2645.
indus civilization composite bow 202.188.53.210 (talk) 04:59, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
The disadvantages section could use better citations. There are basically no citations backing up the claims about certain humid areas using the composite bows less— the only cite is the Strategikon reference. All the other links are just precipitation charts. Having a direct cite for these claims would be really helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1007:B116:4F6B:98D:7E78:507D:CA98 (talk) 01:47, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
At this edit I have removed a claim that composite bows were known in the Tassili plateau in the Mesolithic. This is referenced to a nice piece of rock art that shows a decurve bow. The art isn't dated and isn't diagnostic of a composite bow.
I have also removed a comment about Saharan charioteers in the Mesolithic. I agree that the rock art given as a reference does represent a chariot, and it's obvious enough that we could say so. But again, it isn't dated. And, since it doesn't include a bow, it isn't relevant to this article.
The book doesn't seem to support any of the comments made here. In particular, searching it for "composite" brings up nothing, and while bows are mentioned and so are San, there's no obvious indication that it mentions San people in the Sahara or anywhere near it. Or composite bows.
Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:18, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
This article contained a reference to the so-called "Silk Road Foundation", also known as "Silk Road". It's an online publisher. The website can be found here:
https://www.silkroadfoundation.org
This publication sometimes refers to itself as "Silk Road Journal", but should NOT be confused with Silk Road Journal Online, which has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.
The Silk Road Journal in question is based primarily around Asian archaeology and history. It typically publishes theoretical articles written by researchers who appear to mostly hail from Russia and China. The sole editor of the publication, an American man named Daniel Waugh, has candidly stated that it has no formal peer review:
http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol15/srjournal_v15.pdf
From the outset, there has been no formal process of peer review, such as one expects in the standard academic journals. We still solicit articles (a task which largely has devolved on me over the years), though we also receive (but have not been overwhelmed by) unsolicited submissions.
Decisions on what to publish (as with any journal) ultimately rest with the editor, who in this case, for better or worse, has acted as the peer reviewer. I often see what I think is gold in material that could never find its way into a standard academic publication. But the perils of rarely seeking outside opinions may mean things slip through without acknowledgement that a subject has been thoroughly treated elsewhere.
The lack of formal peer review does have the unfortunate consequence that junior scholars hoping to advance in their profession may avoid us, since their promotion will depend in the first instance on peer reviewed publication, however excellent (and widely cited) a piece might be which we would publish. Yet in some cases where there is a premium for academics in other countries to publish in a respected journal in English, we have been able to provide just such an opportunity. Many of the senior scholars we have solicited for contributions have politely refused to write for us, since they are already over-committed [...]
So, the Silk Road Foundation is a speedy publishing mill for primary research that is not formally peer reviewed. The editor describes himself as someone who often sees "'gold in material that would never find its way in to a standard academic publication'". A lot of researchers don't want to be published by Silk Road Foundation, and those that do are disproportionately from non-English speaking countries, who struggle to get their theories published in standard English-language journals.
To my mind, this is very near to the definition of predatory publishing, with the exception that the Silk Road Foundation does not even provide the benefits of high-end predatory puboishers, like DOI. It's really more like an internet blog.
The Silk Road Foundation is cited on various ethnical and archaeological articles on Wikipedia, often advancing pet theories, which is out of touch with WP:RS, which says that Wikipedia should prioritize high-quality, peer reviewed secondary research over this kind of stuff.
Although I'm not aware of any controversial material in this particular Wiki article related to its Silk Road Foundation reference, and I have no enmity for the Silk Road Foundation or its publisher, or its authors, this source does not meet Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources, and should not be cited. Hunan201p (talk) 08:02, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
The Scythian section speaks much about a "working tips" phenomenon, but I'm not seeing this mentioned in the source given:
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/scythian_bows.htm
I am unable to verify Otto Maenchen Helfen, but even so, his work can only purely theoretical and not based in archaeology, as the only forensic and experimental research on these bows dates to the very recent 21st century.
I don't doubt that earlier authors theorized about a "lift-off" effect from working tips, but strong doubts have been cast on this hypothesis. For example:
https://atarn.org/chinese/Yanghai/Scythian_bow_ATARN.pdf
There have been claims that the recurved outer-ends of limbs in this bows increased the energy storage of the bow, due to the “lift-off” of the bowstring from the ends, which progressed as the bow was drawn, thus levelling out the forces for a smooth, stack-less draw. While the effect was possible to a degree in the case of low-strung bows with more recurved limbs, it is to be doubted the lift-off was ever intended in this design to increase performance. Many of the original Scythian bows have the limbs nearly straight with only a small recurvature, in some cases merely a hook to hold the string. Obviously, ibex horns were not the same and the lift-off effect cannot be recognized as an intended feature of the bows. The only apparent function of the recurved tips, similarly to other composite bows would be the added stiffness in the tips, which helps to increase the energy storage by forcing the limbs to bend closer to the grip.
and,
Moreover, the cross-sectional and side profile of the bows could vary between different specimens, as well as the flexibility of the outer sections of bows, which came to be nearly rigid in the replica.
Also, the Wiki says that lathes are totally absent in Scythian bows. Again the source predates the forensic examinations of Scythian bows, which did reveal wooden grip lathes:
Two thin fillets can be seen at the sides of the grip in the original bow. They were added to increase the width of the grip and partly the limbs close to the grip. Apparently the species of wood, possibly tamarisk, traditionally used for these bows, did not yield laths of sufficient size.
So the article needs a bit of clarification here and there - Hunan201p (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
A 2011 promotion that doesn't meet the modern criteria. Significant uncited text that isn't to the level of WP:BLUE, and some of the sources aren't really all that great. For instance, the Karpowitz source appears to be self-published, and several of the other web sources are dodgy. One footnote commits original research, as " Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation. (The notes were made in the 1920s and describe composite bows as "compound"; the modern compound bow did not exist at this time.)" is sourced to a source that simply refers to things as compound bows. Will need some work to get back up to the modern standards. Hog Farm Talk 03:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I wonder if Tutankhamun's bows being composite and not the modern definition of compound could legitimately be covered by WP:SKYBLUE, since the excavation reports say what they're made of and modern compound bows weren't invented until the 1960s? If so, what would be the appropriate way of saying so? Richard Keatinge (talk) 20:12, 1 May 2023 (UTC)