How did archers really fight?

I think the rebuttal is very strong. Probably the biggest points in his favor, though, are these: Yes, other techniques are still taught, but the idea of nocking an arrow so it goes on the opposite side is becoming more standard - even when it goes against his dominant eye. That's a knock on modern amateur archery rather than all archery, though. The point in his favor is the short-range/long-range archery thing. The claim is that you'd only think archery is exclusively long range if you're used to recreations of Medieval English archery only. However, I do suspect much of the target audience of Lars Andersen's video is used to exactly that.

So, overall, I think the best thing to do is to watch the original video (which is cool trick shooting no matter what) and then watch the rebuttal. The important thing to learn, which is something new to me, is that archery has been less standardized and there were other techniques that have fallen in disfavor. His rebuttal does a lot to make clear his points (emphasizing things I think the rebuttal missed through the need to criticize), but even he agrees there's no one universal method (which de-sensationalizes his original video a bit and makes it a bit more grounded).
 
This video is a lot of fun. On the few occasions I've handled a bow and arrow, I found the technique that worked for me is holding the bow horizontally, which I suppose makes me a revolutionary, natural crossbowman or total amateur.
 
Mike Loades had some good replies to the Andersen debate. I think I agree with pretty much all of his points.

Yes, Andersen did show that it's possible to shoot extremely quickly. He's a great trick shooter. But he made sweeping, poorly founded claims about all of military archery, which covers millennia of history across nearly the whole world, and he ends up very selectively looking at evidence. There were many different archery styles throughout time and across the world. Comanche, Cherokee, English, Manchu, Turkish, Korean, Japanese--there were a lot of different styles meant to meet different needs. English longbowmen certainly didn't hop around shooting the probably very light bows that Andersen uses. Andersen's style is all about getting off as many arrows as possible within a limited time and at a short range while hitting the targets. Which is fine for trick shooting, but in battle? Not good at all. He seems to use a light bow, and often doesn't draw it back fully. This lets him get off a lot of arrows very quickly, but sacrifices a huge amount of power. His video that includes the clip of the arrow piercing "mail" almost certainly portrays what we like to call "fail mail": Incorrectly riveted, or worse, not riveted at all, made of the wrong materials, with the wrong thickness and diameter of the links, and so on. Cheap stuff made in bulk that only looks like real mail to the untrained eye. The same crap they used in Deadliest Warrior. Even a thrust from a butter knife could probably defeat it. There are very, very few people alive who can make good-quality reproduction mail, and it's very expensive stuff. So people who don't know the difference or don't care get the cheap stuff. I can't blame them; I'm an armor nerd myself, and even I have a hard time telling the difference between 4-in-1, 6-in-1, punch-riveted, drift-riveted, and so on. But still.

He shoots at very close range--within lunging distance of a spear, usually. Not something you'd want on a battlefield unless you're mounted and you know what you're doing. He also shoots at such a rate that he'd very quickly exhaust even the largest of quivers.

But enough of the speculation--as other links here have shown, there's a lot of evidence for the sorts of things Andersen says are myths, and not so much for what he claims are real. For example, plenty of archers historically used back quivers. I prefer wearing my back quiver around the hip when I shoot, since it lets me more easily reach for the arrows and check on how many are left, but that's not to say wearing back quivers wasn't done. Plenty of archers shot in very different ways from Andersen. English longbowmen carried their arrows in arrow bags/linen quivers, and sometimes stuck the arrows point-down in the ground. They didn't run about shooting, especially since they didn't draw their bows so much as lean their bodies into them, which can't be done while moving a lot. They tended to be deployed in a static defensive position, and behind stakes and alongside heavy infantry or dismounted knights whenever possible, and would launch volleys at a good range. Manchu archers, whether on foot or horseback, also used very strong bows, and to my knowledge there's no evidence from period artwork or Chinese military manuals that suggests that they were supposed to hold arrows in the hand, shoot very quickly, or run while shooting. The very strong bows they favored above all just can't be shot that quickly without completely exhausting the archer--and he'd probably miss, too.

Andersen has done a good job of showing that rapid shooting can be done, but by making these sweeping claims, he's both attracted attention and wandered into an area he doesn't seem to know much about.
 
to me it seems you either need to be massively ignorant about historical archery or dishonest and i tend to suspect the latter, which makes his archery skills dubious as well to me.
 
Did you guys watch his followup video? I think that one is a little better and addresses some of your concerns.
 
Yeah, I wasn't referring to your post as much as others (particularly tesb).
 
well my biggest concerns were not with his skills but the underlying historical narration and claims. and in the second video he mostly clarified. i simply don't understand why he made those claims (many still not addressed) in the first place.

the whole first video just alerted my fraud senses:
-bold claims
-heavy editing
-historical simplifications/falsehoods/exaggerations
 
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