Fire-arrows! 

oh lewd

Je suis francais moi aussi

with very bad bows made of grass. and stone arrow heads made of soft sandstone. And the british archers should be on their side of the channel, then they will win any battle with the french.

For some reason as I read your comment I heard a frenchman in my head

I dunno why, maybe the accent

Ikr such nubs

@@allofthiswasanexperimentlo9641 so cringe

@@dagothur76839 ikr, i crigedd zoo hard wen dey lit the arros insted of enchting them hahahahahahehehehahahahhohohaha

@@allofthiswasanexperimentlo9641 like bro shoot ur arrows thro lava with a automatic dispensir lol so cring

>not just making a rocket launcher by firing rockets from a crossbow

Greek fire

@@jakefitzsimmons1213 Ancient napalm *

@Khaki Shorts You mean the natives that lived like cavemen for 50000 + years without any evolution 🤔?

@@bloodangel19 yeah because ancient Americans totally weren't capable of building pyramids, mathematics,and astronomy

@@ln7929 Yes

would have wrote it if you wouldnt have already done so, :)

@@bebanxd1074 yes because that’s FUCKING UNORIGINAL AND COPIYING COMMENTS! :)

@@IsraelCountryCube indeed.

And that's how Canada was born

why penetrate frenchman when you can P E N E T R A T E S T E P S I S

Yolo Swaggins freezin doze breastplates

That's an additional D6 of frost damage.

Ice arrows, melt inside the victim's body to leave no trace

of course, it's for movement speed -60% effect pretty effective!

"Polar opposite, ice arrows" That was a cool pun.

they might shoot him with arrows

@@cooorsbanq4226 But you don't get it... This is a really strong and agile young lad

Is he strong and agile enough to penetrate the Frenchman?

@@benjaminmarks8765 He is indeed my friend, this lad is at least! Twice stronger and more agile than the most strong and agile frenchman

@Ma Boi Scotty My good sir! He is the youngest lad I have seen in ny entire life

The best arrows, really the greatest, it's amazing really how great they are, possibly the greatest ever, I'm not sure

4444 1414 Trump?

Hmm?

Yeah It was kind of the British to blame for that One. They just started to own everything, which the french King didnt like.. so yeah...

One of my favourite “Mock the Week” bits was ‘The answer is 45 years, what is the question?’ ‘At what point in the 100 Years War did the generals say, “Buck up lads, nearly halfway there!” ‘

Gone sexual, Lindybeige PENETRATES a Frenchman 6:36 into the video.

Will not work on bald dudes.

@@nugasred4484 bald dudes are op

@WaluigiShrek Or if they start WEARING towels?

Well, you might not have won the siege, but you killed a nice German lady who was reading this comments while eating dinner - she had to laugh so hard that she choked (might not be true though - Germans don't have any humor).

@@veyd3lveyeel520 That's why Julius Caesar was so successful.

Legit people don’t know how difficult it is to start fires until they’ve tried to and wait like 10 minutes with candles lit under a piece of wood for it to final spread around enough to show a flame. Then in films people just spontaneously combust.

we had fire katanas at the battle of Crécy

I used fire armor

I was at the 7h Battle of the Isonzo and I can confirm that all of our guns fired flaming pommels and our sidearms were katanas and buster swords.

George Perakis the 7h was the nastiest one. All those flaming pommels were merciless.

Katanas? Fire arrows? What scrappy weapons! At the second Battle of Stampford Brige us vikings used drunkjards with picnic baskets! ^^ (It should be said that one of our guys held your entire army at bay for half an hour...)

"It turned out to be a poor idea to build the Sherman tank out of wood, because the German lasers would immediately ignite them."

“In the 20th century, you see, bazookas were really awesome, commanders would make sure to arm their elite troops with bazookas because bazookas make an awful lot of damage when you fire them at the enemy soldiers, right, right?”

"You see, the most popular bombs used in WW2 were small sized Nukes."

Panzerkampfwagen III Ausfhürung L Ah there you are Kommandant, I was wondering where you were during Barbarossa

That would be fun

Medieval, not medical.

... medical times?

Ah, yes, i love studying medical times, Dr Henry V was amazing

To 3 yr post. Most of the time the defenders would already wetted all thatched roofing in case of it catching fires. A lot of battlements and casement have wooden roofs, railings and wooden shields (All rotted away from any surviving castles so people today think that bare stone castles is what it looks like before. Forgetting also most castle walls are plastered white so the enemy can't use the cracks of the stones to climb it, and it protects the wall from the weather.)

* flashbacks to the good old days *

RUN AWAY!

... What if a swallow carried the fire arrow?

What if they launched flaming cows?

@@sike2399 what do you mean, an african or european swallow?

I was expecting the fire to phhhh him back, or tell him that blowing it without consent is offensive...

precious

Physicists hate him! Click here to find out why!

avatar-arrows?

Moss arrows are more useful.

I prefer lightning arrows

Or rope arrows! Immagine, if you use them offensively against Frenchmen, you can tie the entire army!

Air arrows? Oh wait, all arrows went through air. O well.

But bullets don't go straight

@@Markus-8Muireg BuT bULLeTs DoN't Go StRaiGhT You just had to be a smartass, didn't you?

@@arianas0714 :)

"Now then Sir, how do we use these bullets?" "uhhhh...." "Jenkins?" "Well about that sir... just give it a few... decades?"

@@jordray5823 how about a few centuries

...but in the book says that fire arrows do +1 dmg

@@vontheevil but by his rules it would be +1 dmg if the arrow is still lit by the time it hits lmao

Magic items exist in fantasy RPG's.

After an hour long dissertation about why it’s unrealistic and you can’t set the structure on fire with fire arrows: “Ok, ok. Scratch that. We are going to cast fireball....”

I'm french and i volunteer.

Roman scorpions could light their bolts

​@@alibryant8588 are you quoting Age of Empires right now?

They also used Greek fire in their navy. Setting enemy ships ablaze.

@@alibryant8588 Romans had arrows, scorpion and ballistae bolts, all designed with setting things on fire in mind. And it worked, seeing as they used them consistently. Basically, people should do some historical research, or at least a little reading, before believing they were a hoax, where only movies used them. I mean, for gods sake, half of Romes war paintings have literal fire arrows in them.

@@kingstormysky3978 you are dumb

yes, but that was likely at shorter ranges than in an open field battle, meaning you could have an arrow that burns really hot with a big blaze of pitch even for like 30 seconds and it'd still probably set fire to something. I can imagine 30 arrows like that getting hammered into the mast and throwing the pitch inside them all over the sails from the force of impact would be disastrous.

Also, a fire blazing on ship's bridge is quite easily dealt with (you just need some buckets with ropes tied to the handles); a fire blazing on the sails, on the other hand...

The "end them rightly" jokes are getting really old man.

Perhaps we should end the rightly jokes rightly...

Capn Clawhammer Oh god, shoot me now.

I wonder if anyone was ever ended...leftly?

+Rebypox Fuck no they aren't. Best thing in a bladed weapon review out there is to find a pommel joke in the comnent. Literally one of the few things in a comnent section that make me laugh

The Butler Did It He said, that they must have used them *in battles* like they always do in movies, which they didn't.

@@paulbenedict1289 Ok, but did Vikings use them to set floating pyres on fire?

@@paulbenedict1289 Battle of Pressburg.

Shane Wolfe Very unlikely.

I thought they just set the boat on fire like with their hands when it was in front of them instead of using an arrow

That's the point of this whole video, didn't you even watch it?

@@CDStoner yeah and I learned a lot.

They were also used in naval warfare a lot

@@brianlam5847 which I don’t understand for like you could just pour water on the sails or whatever and there is no point in shooting a soggy boat

@@dannydevito7584First of all, chinese "fire arrows" are actually arrows with a gunpowder payload that activates when it hits the hull of the ship, and unlike these fire arrows, have their own oxygen supply which allows them to create a fire on deck much easier. Even a lucky hit could put a fire onto a spot where sailors couldn't actually reach and put out, and sink a ship by itself. Also, you can't just put salt water on every surface of a sail, since the junk boats of china had big sails with no good way to douse the sails effectively, since only a small part of the sails could be doused before combat, since the sails were too big and too hard to get on top of to douse them with water. It would take multiple trips with a bucket to get a quarter of it doused lightly, and even if, a gunpowder arrow could easily spark a fire in a lightly doused sail near the base where the water can't reach easily.

FIVE MINUTES AGO TOO

IT'S HAPPENING!!!

IT HAPPENED!!!!!!

It is a sign, the end is coming!

YOU FORGOT TO USE CAPS!

yeah it will be called the railgun crossbow.

so your dream is shooting and killing people? woah, cringe

@@andreniki8864 it's a joke dummy

V-3 cannon but the shot came from a different direction ;)

As an American, we already have that capability. If you can call an ICBM an arrow.

To burn him rightly.

and end him justly

do thou even pommel bretheren ?

belt fed, spandau's fire pommels

Made of GLORIOUS NIPPON STEEL!

THAT is the idea, look at the episode "profit and loss" of Vikings where the boats are hit with jars of pitch then shot with flammable arrows...with predictable result.

They do work as a good way to demoralize the enemy forces: When you're already shitting bricks because you have a cloud of arrows flying towards you, them being on fire adds a nice fear factor.

yes but at this distance they can just throw a torch so...

It's almost like he talked about that at the end of the video.

Instead of an fire arrow, is much more effective in lobbing a projectile, like a pot filled with thick oil, or tar. The speed of the projectile is lower, so chances of the fire getting put out by the woosh are significantly lower and on the other end, the projectile shatters, spilling its contents and catching fire - much more harder to contain. So yes, historically, most fire projectiles were things lobbed over, not arrows.

Ah, yes about that...

But my grandpas uncle had a barber, whos grandfathers friend fought in WW2 against japan and said all Katanas cut though hardened diamonds like butter!!!!

It'll be nice to not just dismiss the katana has being overhyped/mediocre. Did the katana make sense given how the Japanese fought? Why did the Japanese fight the way they did (limited resources, geography, etc.)?Every weapon you talk about is always going to be obsolete or inferior in a different context. It's stupid to talk about weapons being the best or worst. It's more interesting to talk about the context.I think it's sad that you basically have two groups of people praising and dismissing the katana about being the "best", and neither really just talk about what it actually was.

Or that the Spandau was not the best MG in WWII! :P

That's a really good point actually: technically superior weapons can almost always be defeated by some combination of skill/circumstances and/or user error. Most people will tell you that the Spitfire was a brilliant fighter aircraft, and it was, under favourable circumstances. Ask a squadron of Spitfires to escort your bombers to Berlin and back however, and you're going to have a lonely and very dangerous flight. That's what Mustangs are for....

It's amazing how disconnected from fire we are. I heat my house with a wood burner. Coals are stubborn as hell.

@@ambrose788 Why does that matter in the slightest?

@@BlueRaven893 well this whole video is about how ineffective fire is, but if you actually live with fire you find out it's different properties. Like how a hot coal can smolder for days (in certain circumstances) and start a fire when you put wood on it.

@@ambrose788 Yes, but I don't think it's about having a connection. You can utilize it every-so-often and experience nearly all it has to offer in a adequate time frame.

@@BlueRaven893 there are diminishing returns. I just think this video misses because of inexperience. There's something to be said about a woodsman who can get a fire going under nearly any circumstances and I don't think there's many alive today who could rig and make sail like an expert ship of the line crew in 1800. Experience has value.

You dont get the point, the ultimate arrow *_IS_* a german soldier

Given your name, I'm surprised at that comment. lol.

+Stalins moustache We need bows that fire Germans then now. I'd pay to see that.

Jonathan E It's about killing two birds with one stone.

Back in the day these weapons were used there was no Germany, so wouldn't it make it somewhat difficult to find many Germans?

More penetration, eh?

No-one does penetrating analyses like Lindy.

lmao, that bait. I'm impressed you managed to change the subject with such ease, though.

Regardless of what I think about the refugees/(whatever you want to call them) this comment was absolutely hilarious, my good sir.

Also, boobs analyses!

Nice 👍

Excactly what I thought too!!

Thanks for bringing this up

Okay, this from memory and I can’t exactly remember the source so bear with me. I once saw an illustration of a fire arrow design, it was supposedly also effective against infantry, but particularly at setting fire to buildings and ships. So it had no metal head, instead there was a small ceramic jar at the head, about 2-3 inches in diameter. This would then be half filled or full filled with oil. At the front of the jar there was a little compartment with a lid (separate from the main jar) where a small bit of oil would be lit. The lid would be put on and then the arrow would be fired. So it worked something like a molotov cocktail. It had less range than a normal arrow but apparently it was highly effective at attack large bodies of infantry as the jar would create a small explosion at whatever it hit. It would also have been highly effective at killing morale, I would think. Say you were an infantry man standing in line with your fellow soldiers, when the guy next to you is hit by an arrow and suddenly bursts into flames. Then you see a barrage of these arrows bearing down on your position. Then small fiery explosions erupt across the field before you, on the men behind you. So don’t ask me for a source, I just remember seeing it somewhere, an illustration with a description. Apparently it was used sparingly in conflicts (in Ancient China I think).

Exactly. What Lindy is failing to understand, is that there is such a thing as shifting your aim for the added weight. Any competent archer can shoot 2 different arrows in weight, close to each other. It's a simple process of, oh I dunno, aiming slightly more up? Whilst he's right, it wasn't used to kill, like the movies portray, there have been recorded instances of them being used to not only set alight siege equipment and other fortifications and buildings, but to lower the morale of the infantry. I'd be more scared, seeing a volley of fire come flying down at you, than regular arrows.

yep , and you need to get very close to the target to do that , the fire arrow in history could be listed as siege and anti siege ammunition instead of anti personal ammunition. How close ? just somewhere right under the castle wall where enemy could turn you into a human porcupine even with all the shield unit to protect you ... ofcourse you can try to set the siege ram on fire in the case of anti siege ... if the enemy forgot to cover their battering ram with fresh skinned hides And ofcourse , none fired them when trying to seige a castle at night like tons of hollywood films did The fire arrow were an important tactic used in a siege. As important as the need of water buckets , firefighter team and inflammable materials to counter it (ofcourse , they were used to counter lots of other weapon , not only fire arrow)

Olga Kost yeah I always see the fire arrows as a longer range torch, more like a tool than a weapon imo

Romans used to throw with catapults clay balls filled with oil and "greek fire" and they did not lit it by the catapult because they broke many times, and mostly snuffed out in the start. They threw them into the enemy and then after that (or just seconds before) they shot the fire arrows that ignited the oils planted there by catapults. Was quite terrifying in a forest when it hit high up in trees and sprayed on a large area. As seen in gladiator. Except they lit them at the catapult in the movies. and that is just wrong.

Yen the smiling dinosaur but even then the things he listed like the fire being blown out and the logistics of it cancel it out as being even a somewhat useful tool

@@diskeyes i've seen people saying they put burning lumps of coal in the arrow head. that would make sense. it doesn't have an actual flame because most coals smolder. look at a bbq for example. and flying through the air won't "put it out" because there is no flame. it just has a lot of heat.

a common wool jacket would probably be enough...

Tristen Snyder I did, but my response is not that funny, now that I read it second time :-/

The wool jacket isn't enough. The key to the defense is a beige shirt with the corners of the collar rounded off.

Only if it's beige.

@bitemis I assume lindy used an angle grinder to round the corners of his collar.

U know how to live

He apparently confused their specific uses as some challenge to arrows generally, like they were in competition. His whole improvisational bit about the inventor of the fire arrow easily demonstrates this flawed fanboy rewrite of history. Because it doesn't seem to *him* that the flaming arrow is "better" than a regular arrow, he skipped the part where he bothered to look it up on Wikipedia and realize that they were of great use. In fact, specifically in the way he keeps snarking about. They were like laser beams. In times when simply throwing fire around was terrifyingly hellish already. The psychological effect is half the utility....alongside the more obvious part where everyone's houses were firetraps. This video amounts to a person in the year 3000 announcing that handheld weaponry was never used in the 21st century because bombs obviously kill better. It's just a very narrow definition of logic, applied to events that actually happened as if they're a single scene from a movie. But hey, random youtube commenter: keep representin' reality on random chunks of internet with me. It's kinda fun-furiating :-D

A. You're wrong, 2, he already mentioned their uses, Γ, who cares about bombs, 四, regular arrows are very efficient and scary enough. Especially when there are 2000 of them in the air at any point in time.

You are absolutely right and I was about to make the same comment, but then I remembered what this video was from, which was that horrendous movie about Troy, and how they used fire arrows mid-battle. The problem is that he only glancingly mentions the movie, in fact if you had not seen the first video than you wouldn't have much of an idea what he was talking about.. It isn't until 9:48 that he finally does mention sieges, when he says they would be very effective.

that's exactly what he said in the video

i doubt this guy even knows or at least wants to admit the Mongols dominated mid Medieval age. even in his Horse archery is useless video, he doesnt mention how the Mongols totally didnt conquer half the world with such a useless technique such as mounted archery.

lol

I'm triggered by all these people triggering each other with their triggering...

Don't worry. Whike the english certainly shot the french a lot with arrows in the 100 years war, the french responded by shooting the english to pieces with cannons at Castillon. Which I'd argue is significativelly more unpleastant.

Were they loaded with katanas or pommels?

Capn Clawhammer It is highly unlikelly they were loaded with katanas, but I can't prove it wasn't pommels.

That arrow would just snap at launch

So, they didn't even do their job well?

The way he describes the fire department kills me

@@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor It seems in this particular attack they weren't successful because the city had good firefighters, now imagine that wasn't the case.

Yeah, even today, what portion of the population do you think actually understand the difference between putting out a wood fire and a grease fire? They might get lucky and use the right fire extinguisher. But if they don't have a fire extinguisher, you'd be amazed how many people would end up just letting (or making) the fire get out of hand. Even with all the access we have, that's still an issue. Imagine back then when almost no one had that access, apart from word of mouth if something happened nearby.

Yes, this is what frustrates me. So many people are quick to say "Oh but physics and science and such!" for their reasoning as to why it won't work. But they did. Except that they were never used to kill, only to lower morale and set fire to buildings and anything made of wood. That's why you really only hear about them during sieges. They did use them, just not for firing at the infantry.

Lol you thought this was a fire arrow

But it was me

Dio

I'll beat your static fire.jpg arrow with an actively burning fire.gif arrow!

@@EricSon_akuma You fool! I posted a flame gif on Pornhub then put it onto the arrow, which improves its penetration

1 Yes that sounds very difficult to do for either side. 2 yes... 2% ignition rate when shot into dry flammable things... Warning, sarcasm alert, sarcasm incoming 3 ... yeah it's not like there were large groups of people re-collecting them or anything and it is just so expensive to heat something up and then cool it down again. 4 because stuff like that doesn't go out when shot at high speeds. 5 sails that arrows would 100% not go through.

Math /= real world. To take one of your points, Thatch, which was often laid very thick, not what you see in movies, this thickness reduces the amount of oxygen available and penetration depth so it would be like shooting fire arrows at solid wood. Maybe take less physics lessons from DnD. Watch more Lindybeige!

Ari Lunarium No it isn't and it's obvious you've never seen it up close. Thatching burns, hence why when Museums of Canada restored the 'huts' in Upper Canada Village, there was a debate about replacing them with modern building materials, or spraying with fire retardant on a schedule. They replaced them BTW, in 2002. Big news in the Seaway Valley which is what they call the St. Lawrence area where I live. It's funny, but even as Deadly0Night (another armchair historian) figures that setting fire to grass is a 2% ignition rate, (a number pulled from deep within his arse), farmers all over the continent are clearing scrub with nothing but a book of matches. Imagine that. As for the pitch/gum going out...mix some and light it, then throw water on it. Better still, take the leaf blower to it at full tilt. After your yard burns away you can tell me how long it took to go out. Or research greek fire, which is what they were trying to recreate, but instead were making a rudimentary form of napalm which doesn't suffer the same failings as a lit hanky.

antagonizerr So they shot flaming arrows at the huts? Of course thatch burns, but not as easily as you might think. So pitch/gum can easily be applied to the end of an arrow without causing weight or flight problems? I have cleared scrub with a flame thrower, grass often burns at a low temperature, not enough to light most trees. Hotter burning brush is what is worried about, and I doubt they would just leave it laying against their buildings. It's not just it burns or it doesn't, composition matters a lot. How many LindyBeige videos have you watched? It seems like you don't know that he travels, visits historical sites and participates in reenactments.

Ari Lunarium I think you severely underestimate the potential of a scrub fire. I also think you underestimate the flammability of a sun baked and dry thatched roof. It's just bundled reeds that are years, if not decades old. Damn right it burns, and burns well. I like LindyBeige, and have seen all his vids, but I don't consider him to be the consummate pro on all things iron age. This just happens to be one of those things he got wrong. You seem to be concerned about weight but how much does a bit of tar and canvas weigh? You don't need a massive arrow for the job either as I highly doubt these arrows were held fast for more than a minute before being fired. I doubt anyone was worried about the shaft burning up as fueled fires don't burn that way. You must have played with lighter fluid in your life, right? You know you can hold it a long time without being burned? I'm not going to claim pro status here, too many people try and do that, but if you want my resume, look me up. Tho I don't make vids I do post to instructables under the same name. I'm what I like to call a lithic artist. If you're curious where I learned it, just ask, but I don't want to be 'that guy' that claims crap without proof.

THIS. Pre-gunpowder/cannon days.

But that's just regular melee on ship decks...

The basics are pretty simple. You'd fire projectiles such as arrows, javelins or stones, and maybe have a ballista if you were lucky. Alternatively you would try and hook the ship, pull them close and engage physically or ram them. Obviously there is more to it than that on a strategic level, but that's the gist.

Ryan McAllen like the fire arrows in the movies?

Yes that would be great! Pirates of baltic and mediterenian sea! Pre-gunpowder era!

If you attached it to an arrowhead, sure. The weight would be a problem though and it isn't aerodynamic either

You can't, but you can make huge baguettes and use them as lances.

Baguettes are also very useful against watermelons barrage and can be suitable throwing weapons.

should rather shoot it from a bren gun, its better you know

It's more efficient to shoot a baguette with a Colt .45 or a Luger or any side arm for that matter. Quicker and cleaner and you still eat the baguette.

Thank you!

anouther one i recently thought of would be defencive. Armys were rather large and quite obvious. Sow the land around the walls with pitch wate for the attack to happen......toasty attackers

Ian Mills A true "scorched earth" policy!

***** only the pessants.

Ian Mills late as fuck comment but Aldo burning enemy camps

... Why does it matter? You're going to catch them?

That's actually a good idea. Free ammunitions to shoot back, even if crappy ones.

@@Sanroxem If both sides have archers (a reasonable assumption in a pitched battle) then it matters quite a bit. Of course it's a silly situation to begin with, standing armies would never engage in pitched battles at night.

Like tracers from assault rifles. At first fire arrows make sense, then you think about it long enough and it not practical. If you think even deeper though fire arrows could have their benefits.

if you're talking a medieval battle, it's not gonna matter a whole lot if their position is revealed, unless they're planning an ambush

Yes, and siege towers normally had defences against fire on them and in them. Fire arrows were used in sieges.

How were siege defenders able to overcome the problems you mentioned in the video? Did they probably use method #1 (big end, low penetration/range/etc.)?

well the arrow he is holding an fire arrow used in seiges to try and burn down siege weapons or burn houses behind walls

Probably they just didn't draw the arrow fully. Shot from a warbow at a 28" draw, even a 32" burning arrow will go a considerable distance. The range and lower penetrating power will still be be worse than a standard arrow though....

+Red Vodka Make roofs with tiles. Not gonna burn.

okaaaaay

Oh my.. MAY THE GODS HELP US AGAINST THIS UNSTOPPABLE MAN!

Someone has to make an illustration of this

Only if you use the reverse grip.

god we .........

Here: plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+ValsorayGaming/albums/6294535605251810641/6294535604397921554?pid=6294535604397921554&oid=104098625645551528978

Capt Char That's what I was thinking.

Weren't sails often treated with flammable oils? And the decks had loads of tar/pitch to plug any leaks. So yeah.

BonDieu617 Depends on the time period with sails. Either way they would be damp. And would probably be so thick they'd glance off. They kept pitch in barrels of some kind. They wouldn't have pitch all over their deck because its a huge safety hazard, especially considering how slippery it would be.

Max Anthony Not all over the deck of course, but they used it to plug leaks and holes as well as ridges between planks. It wasn't _everywhere_ of course, but there was a lot of it.

Probably depends a helluva lot on the circumstance as well. A designate battleship who are ready & have chance to prepare themselves vs fire arrows using specially crafted sails could probably shrug them off. A civilian, commercial or lower quality ship on a sunny day however might be very vulnerable to fire arrows.

Love the jumper btw

Not so fast. There a lot of ways this can go wrong or not go at all. First of all, signaling to loose fire arrows with....fire could be problematic. The means to light both is...in fact fire. So you can imagine how a bunch of dudes are looking around at night for someone to light a fire to signal them....all it takes is someone kicking over a fire source, or a bellow lighting up a fire source more than usual and it looks like a signal. At night its going to be difficult to know exactly where the ends of the line are. Somebody fucks up 1/4 of the way from the end of the lines and its just as good as the end of the line to someone waiting for a fire to be lit in the dark. That is without talking about how chaotic, and nerve racked a bunch of peasant archers will be during a night attack. That's without talking about how much training and drilling has gone into night fire arrow signaling. That's without talking about how rare night battles have been because of all these reasons. That's without talking about how rare good training was for Medieval soldiers, let alone for night fighting (non-existent). Not to mention, most Medieval armies were utter shit at signaling in general. As far as I understand, pretty much no European military during the middle ages was able to develop and maintain the art of signaling to anything resembling what the Romans were doing hundreds of years before them. Hypothetically though...it's not inconceivable to do what you are talking about. You could drill it into soldiers, practice light discipline at night, and then pray for no errant horseman or bumbling archer to knock over a fire source prior to the first volley. But there would have to be a pretty good reason to want to make your fire arrow volley happen instantaneously rather than take 20 seconds for everyone to get on the same page. I'm sure if i sit here long enough I can think of a hypothetical reason for this...maybe. (I'm not saying English archers weren't well trained archers, because they were pretty good at putting arrows in the air, especially when you had veteran mercenary companies selling themselves across Europe during the Hundred Years War, but in general, archers were peasants with little prior training or experience. Peace time English longbow training was also ambiguous with varied enforcement when it was legally required. There's target practice and then there is application of archery on a battlefield.)

your telling me that waiting around and looking for a signal fire is better than having a signal transmit to your phone/watch that tells it to vibrate? As soon as you feel the vibration, you fire. That seems way faster than looking for a signal fire that is adequate at best and extremely misleading at worst? I don't think so

Militaries used drums to send loud rhythmic signals for miles at the speed of sound. Which actually works *faster* than radio communication for such short ranges. Not because the radio's slower, of course, but because humans are very good at quickly recognizing rhythmic drumbeats, so we respond faster instinctively, and it improves with training.

Good point. But they still wouldn't have zippo's or matches to light their arrows.

Well they are far more inaccurate than normal arrows and takes longer to reload. So no, they actually have pretty big penalty. The upside was that they give moral loss to the enemy and as far i can tell does more damage. So i mostly use fire arrows to heavily armored enemies. Light units: normal arrows ftw.

Gr8humanilation9TV The inaccuracy thing worked both ways though, as it took 2 or more arrow hits to put down even mildly armoured units, but one shot with a bow seemed to make everyone burst into flames. I didn't really notice a reload penalty, it's a few seconds if at all.

The accuracy of the unit makes a huge difference for sure. Also what total war we are talking about. Like in Rome you might want to use fire arrows but like in shogun 2 normal arrows kills in 1-2 shots so using flaming arrows is not as useful.(talking about light infantry). The most important thing about fire arrows for me is the moral penalty AND that is they point of them. The strategy part of them. Risk and reward. Do less damage (in general) but lessen moral. Its great. Btw favorite Total War?

Gr8humanilation9TV It's mainly Rome and Medieval 2 that I've noticed it in. As for favourite, I think it has to be original Rome. On steam alone I have about 400 hours in it and I bought it on disk when it first came out. I can't get on with the newer ones, I don't know what they did to them, but I hate my cavalry being stopped by skirmishers like their brick walls, or units glitching 500 feet through terrain to perform one of their finishing moves. What about you? I've never gotten into the Shogun's, they seemed far more complicated than "build army- smash!" with the whoring of the daughters and the political backstabbing.

Original Rome and Medieval 2 here too but i prefer rome because the time period. Far more interesting for me. I had it on disk too. Just because the fucking awesome hand to hand combat. Its perfect. The moment when you flank enemy infantry and just charge to them. The hit of the charge is just awesome or just charging head to head with infantry and no fucking kill moves... Its killing the hand to hand combat and killing the series. Like you said "hitting a brick wall". Yup that's how it is in the new ones. There is simply no unit collision. It's so ugly and i know... its on shogun 2 but the polish on that game is the best of all of them. Played all of the total wars expect the newest one.

yep, found it: Deadliest Warrior S02, E10. They also found that the impact from the arrow hitting a target often extinguished the fire.

polymphus IIRC they were a psychological weapon mostly used to break cavalry formations, since animals tend to freak out over fire pretty easily.

OPEN YOUR EYES PLEBS

it burns whatever is made out of wood

+Alexandros grivas THE SENATE IS LYING TO ROMA

Eddycurrents ?

+Alexandros grivas THE SENATE IS A FRONT FOR ALIENS TO RULE ROMA OPEN YOUR EYES

by what?

Thats exactly what i thought when he started impersonating :)

No I thought of him the first time I saw him ha.

In which series? Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third, Blackadder Goes Forth?

Yep

pommels* Who placed n and m next to each other?

"Who placed n and m next to each other" french (azerty) layout doesn't... and all lindy talks about is penetrating the french lol.

Katana pommels. I rest my case.

Unless the Frenchmen wore studded leather armour.

You're doing it all wrong... We need spandaus shooting flaming katana pommels! And every soldier should have a bikini made out of studded leather armour. Compleate protection achieved!

So what your saying is it's unrealistic and irrelevant? Lol.

Well, that is essentially the concept of a naphtha grenade, which was actually used in the middle ages. That said, one would not use it in an arrow since you need it to spread all over you target. As Lindybeige said, there is no merit in the arrow burning if not used against structures. Not going to incinerate any people who get hit.

actually, it wouldnt be that hard to make, but you cant get too much fire out of it... a cool thing would be to put an arrow drenched in some thick oil or tar that burns slowly and put a criystal tip with phosforus inside... so it will break and ignite the oil that will splatter arround... at least some oil would still be there for sure...

promatt5 Wow imagine all the Frenchmen we could penetrate.

Gerben van Straaten. because an arrow is easier to aim. and id say 1,000 arrows will make more small fires then the few dozen moderate to large fires the catapult or scorpio make. or for maximum effect you do both and make sure you burn shit down.

Charlie Crome HEAT arrows?

What about Ice arrows?

Knights of the Nine High Explosive Anti Tank or HEAT for short could be a good idea

Togira Ikonoka what would be the point...? It would literally be worthless.

How about Phosphorus?

Nonetheless, as early as the 5th century BC, there are references to fire arrows being used against infantry. Fire arrows were widely used for at least two thousand years of warfare all around the world. They're not an everyday thing, but they were a tool of war used by armies from numerous cultures in numerous battles for as far back as we have surviving records, when the situation called for it, and conditions were right. Obviously the people using them thought they worked well enough to keep using them.

I always thought they used charcoal...

The question is: did they have access to sugar before they learned how to make cannons and muskets?

Greek fire most likely. Or burning pitch.

Not sure if they had much suger back then. And they might not knew the recipe

I think potassium nitrate is what was used to keep the wick burning on matchlock muskets.