Medieval Madness (A show idea challenge)

technically not up, in any orientation that I can imagine the bow being fired. it would either point directly away from the bow or directly to the bow.

here is a link that includes a comprehensive listing of the possibilities: english.stackexchange.com/questions/57899/what-is-the-origin-and-earliest-recorded-usage-of-cock-up

Might this also be the origin of the term "cocking a weapon"? That term never made sense to me.

Nope.

With a musket the cock is the s-shaped 'hammer' that holds the flint/match. It wasn't usually called a hammer as it is today because it didn't hit anything itself, being designed to scrape the flint into the frizzen-pan to create sparks that ignited the power. 

Hence to 'cock a gun' meant to pull the cock fully back so the weapon was ready to be fired - exactly the same as with modern guns.

Incidentally 'going off half-cocked' relates to the fact that unlike modern guns the hammer of a musket had three positions. As well as up - ready to be fired - and down (usually after being fired, but it also acted as a safety catch of sorts) there was a middle setting where the hammer could be raised enough to allow the frizzen-pan to be loaded with powder. It was possible for the hammer to slip when it was in this position and ignite the powder - hence the gun would discharge when it was at half-cock.



No. The ice cannon idea has been posted elsewhere.

Besides which the ice cannon dates to a much later period - I *think* around the time of Catherine the Great - which is well past the Medieval period. 

actually, no. it has its own thread in the weapons forum.

variant I heard had it as a colloquialism for agricultural plowing. - though that may have come after the Scandinavian usage.

I believe that was either an old germanic or ancient Dutch word, but yes. That has also been in the running for the title of 'origin of the F-word'.

Not sure it`s Scandinavian in origin, the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that both it and say the Swedish word and the Dutch word for it come from an older root in the Germanic language groups.

a simple press and a few sheets of sheet metal with the correct metallurgy would be adequate for the receiving end rig. (because the shaping makes a difference)

one should keep in mind that the expression "xxxx proof" comes from this time period, when a new suit of armor would be proven resistant to a certain class of weapons by firing the weapon into the breastplate at close range. there was arrow proof, crossbow proof, pistol proof and musket proof armor sold at various points in the development of weapons.

Skeletons recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose have confirmed this. Several were found to have to have abnormally large right arms from repeatedly pulling the drawstring back.



Actually there is some debate over the 200lb draw weight figure for the Longbow. While a couple of recreations of the bows found with the Mary Rose did show draw weights this high, there are strong suspicions that the recreations were flawed.

Even if they were not the actual draw weight seems to have varied from between 120-200lbs, with the average draw weights falling into the 140-160lb range for an average bow. This would also explain why some of the Mary Rose Bows showed the highest draw weight figures. Presumably the Rose carried spare bows, and would have needed to have covered the range of draw weights archers used. Of course just because that may have included bows in the 180-200lb range doesn't mean that there were many men of the period who could use bows that powerful - it is quite possible that no one on the Rose at the time she sank was capable of using such a bow. At this period armies were raised by the local lords so there would be considerable variation in quality.

Of course this doesn't mean that the Longbow was not a powerful weapon for the period. Typical hunting bows of the period show draw weights in the 60-80lb range (Deer not being known for wearing chainmail), typical war bows show draw weights in the 90-120lb range. So even the weakest English archer would have been equal to other archers, and the average archer would have been using a bow that was significantly more powerful than anything but a crossbow.

English archers don't seem to have been trained specifically for strength, but for accuracy and speed - after all the longbow was the heavy machine gun of its time, meaning an area effect weapon against massed troops. At the time of Agincourt to be considered an archer meant that you had to be capable of firing a minimum of 10 aimed shots per minute. Being able to do this even with a fairly low powered bow would of course have required a fair degree of strength, but this would have been incidental to what you were trying to do.