yes, altho regarding the cheapness, it seems that there were times when it was difficult to obtain the best quality yew in sufficient quantities. Seems like the yew grown in England isn't quite as good as the yew grown in other areas, due to the weather patterns. So sometimes getting it imported in sufficient quantity was difficult, and made them more expensive.
I'd love to hear more about this. I guess I kind of assumed it was obvious that modern assault rifles would have no trouble with midieval plate. If that's not always the case, it'd be interesting to hear about it.
Yew rods, specifically for bowyers, were actually the forced currency for the spanish paying import tax at about that time in history. Don't forget mercantilism is an English invention. As for the v-sigh, it actually dates back to hastings, where the english got vanquished, and afterwards the archers got their drawing fingers cut of to prevent them from taking up arms again. The v-sign was basicly a way of showing combativeness, whilst expressing sentiments "upyoursism". Also the main reason the English won over the superiour force was the same as why the Flemish beat he French in 1302... The French lords were so confident of their superiority they arrived at the battlefield in relatively small groups, and for the most part just rode out to meet those "english peasants" and "show them" . Of course, 50 well armed and trained knights will seriously get in trouble if thousands of archers release a simultanious volley, especially with the longbow (range & stopping power). On top of that, it is highly likely this battle saw the first application of the ribauld ( a type of cannon) in a battle, by the English. Wouldn't have been terribly great versus 35000 french, but at least it would scare the digested onions out of them.
With the flemish the swampy underground and local knowledge of the territory made the difference, but the bow was also employed effectively as a weapon versus heavily armoured knights. Note that the french had to scale a hill with very muddy ground before they could reach the english, so the charges would have been seriously hampered, slowed, and terribly tiring for man and beast. Even if they got near the English, they would have been spent.
Right, i could yap some more about this all, but it's been a while since i studied that specific period in european history, so i might be a bit rusty left and right; so to avoid errors i'll leave it at this.
as fir the armour versus assaultrifle, it is somewhat amazing considering the fact cuirassiers used breastplates to protect against gunfire (much more primitive than assaultrifles) with relatively little success, so eventually the practice of donning plate was abandoned entirely (well, in real battles at least). Taking into consideration what makes the kinetic energy of a bullet on impact we see the following things: the Energy = (Mass of the projectile (in kg) multiplied by the speed to the second power) divided by 2.
Old guns had slower projectiles but with higher mass. Modern assaultrifles fire high velocity rounds, but alot lighter. So technically, since speed is alot more influential on the total energy released on impact, modern weapons ought to be more efficient versus armor. One thing that comes to mind is mass density of steel armour versus lead ammo. Using steel ammo would almost certainly pierce modern armor (let's not start with taking deflection into consideration, that would REALLY take us too far). What makes light AR ammo less effective over range is exactly the lack of mass though. Drag slows the rounds down alot faster, thus making the round loose speed, and since mass is low: penetrationpower will decline rapidly.
anyway, this being said i'll get back to my coffee.
interesting topic btw.
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!} about how she foundered:
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