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To: SunkenCiv

“May have” had an effect on the battle of Agincourt???

The French were outfitted in armor and attempting to maneuver on muddy ground, and faced an “arrow storm” from the English at fairly close range, many from arrows that were specifically made to penetrate armor. Its difficult to know exactly how many arrows were fired over the course of 5-10 minutes, but it is clear that there were thousands of them, and more than enough to completely overwhelm the French. The French were so confident that mere English archers were no match for the “sophisticated” French, many of them part of the French aristocracy, that they marched to within range of the archers, then tried to stand their ground while the English arrow storm hit them.

In addition, the French cavalry were supposed to attack and defeat the English archers, but each one of them had cut a large pole for himself, sharpened it and planted it in the ground beside his position. When the horsemen approached, the archers just stepped back a couple of paces behind their barricade, and kept on shooting.

Nobody knows how many arrows those English archers fired, but Henry V brought about 3 million arrows with him for the campaign....


17 posted on 08/27/2011 6:57:36 AM PDT by Bean Counter (Obama got mostly Ds and Fs all through college and law school. Keep saying it.....)
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To: Bean Counter
"“May have” had an effect on the battle of Agincourt???"

A bigger question is why didn't the French learn anything from the previous battles of Crecy and Poitiers where the longbow was also used decisively?

20 posted on 08/27/2011 7:01:59 AM PDT by Flag_This (Real presidents don't bow.)
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To: Bean Counter
Its difficult to know exactly how many arrows were fired over the course of 5-10 minutes.

From what I have read seven to ten arrows an miniute. Hank had 7500 archers with wedge shaped armor pearsers, he started out with a reserve of 750k arrows aside from what the archers carried.

55 posted on 08/27/2011 12:05:07 PM PDT by Little Bill (Sorry)
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