A Brief History of the Bow
* Arrowheads have been found in Africa that date back as far as 25,000 to 50,000 B.C.
* Throughout the next few tens of thousands of years, humans had PLENTY of time to refine their techniques. Fire-hardening arrow heads, fletching arrow shafts to improve their flight characteristics, "tillering" bows so that the upper and lower limbs had the same bend radius, etc. All of these improvements helped increase the efficiency and accuracy of the bow and arrow, and helped humans to survive and advance throughout the ages.
* One major advance was the creation of composite bows. Around 2,800 B.C. people began blending different materials together to create better bows. The Egyptians of these times had long composite bows capable of shooting an arrow up to 400 yards!
* As you can see, the bow has been around a long while. It wasn't until recently, however, that the actual design of the bow itself was changed. In fact, this ingenious modification happened about forty years ago...
The Compound Bow
* On December 30th, 1969, Holless Wilbur Allen was granted the patent that would change archery forever.
* The invention of the compound bow was just the beginning. As with the invention of the original bow and arrow, time and ingenuity would take the basic concept to new heights. However, the modern understanding of physics, coupled with advanced materials and construction techniques, has greatly increased the pace at which advances are made.
* Using cams on one or both limbs of a bow allowed for an increased draw weight in the middle of the draw and a reduced weight at full draw. Archers firing traditional recurve bows encounter the highest resistance and draw weight at full draw. This means less time sighting in on a target before fatigue sets in, due to the strain of holding the bow at full draw. Compound bows, on the other hand, use a cam system which places the most resistance about 2/3 of the way through the drawstroke. At full draw, the compound bow reduces the tension in the bowstring by as much as 75-80%, allowing an archer to remain in position and more carefully sight in on a target.
The people of the Eastern Woodlands made many tools to help them in their everyday lives. They made spears, weirs, nets, bows and arrows, lances, knives, taps, snares and deadfall for hunting. Most of those tools were made of wood or bark and other forest material. Arrowheads were made from chert, or flint, from sedimentary rocks. They were shaped like isosceles triangles, the smallest arrows were used for hunting birds, the bigger ones were to spear bears or deer. Flint knives were often oval, or teardrop shaped. For fishing they made spears, weirs, and nets. They also made canoes from hollowed-out trees to help with fishing in the lakes and streams. Some other tools they made were axes made of stone to strip bark, clear fields and removing fat from hides. Axes
Another piece of weaponry that the U.S had made their own version of was the cannons. The cannon was first used in 1861 at Fort Sumter in the U.S Civil War. These were a major upgrade in weaponry as it could help take out big crowds of men and helped so men wouldn’t have to be on the front lines and risk getting killed. Also battles seemed to get quicker because of its strength, but it had some downsides too. These downsides including very bad injuries to the men, also more men would be killed in battles, and finally a lot of cities were destroyed because of it.
Lengthening the sling proved valuable, increasing velocity and range considerably. However, a point was reached at which the sling length could be said to be optimized, and lengthening it further only created unpredictable release angles.
Crossbows can vary a lot in design and construction. They range from 50 to 400 lbs. in draw weight. They can be very small hand held pistols or rifles, which can fire rapidly and accurately with pinpoint accuracy up to 60 yards and kill ranges up to 100 yards. The larger bows with 400lb. draw weights could have ranges of over 400 yards they could fire large arrows, rocks and other types of projectiles accurately while staying well out of range of most enemy fire. These bows were built of large beams and sat on wheels so that 2 men could change the position of the bow easily. These bows were very powerful but were also very slow in loading and firing. They had mechanical winches, which were hand cranked to draw the bowstring back. It took two men to run these bows called siege machines.
Before beginning about the history of ball bearing or bullet ball guns, which are referred to as BB guns in short, let’s take a quick peep at some of the most interesting facts about air guns:
They also hunted small game with blowguns that were accurate from up to 60 feet
The trebuchet is used with a long wooden arm refreshed on a hinge point, which acted as a big level. A bullet was placed on one end and soldiers in this earlier form of the trebuchet pushed on slings devoted to the other end to fundamentals swing the arm around and throw the
The development of the lacrosse stick is really interesting because it started off as a one piece of wood. The stick was handmade by chopping down a tree and carving each individual stick out of it. Then the Canadians made the stick making process several times easier and less expensive by reducing the manual labor. The first modern stick model was produced by a company STX that still produces lacrosse sticks today. STX invented the plastic head stick in 1964 but did not manufacture it until 1970. The new model introduced a stick with a lightweight, symmetrical, perfectly balanced triangular plastic head with leather shooting strings and a synthetic material pocket. The new head assembly was attached to a wooden pole. But later the company created aluminum and other metal composite poles for lighter and stronger shafts with different colors too. The creation was a great innovation in modern lacrosse because the pocket structure could create mo...
The next real step in the evolution of the gun came during the Civil War. Rifles were invented that ...
At the time when humans were learning to use spears constructed out of sticks and stones and the
The earliest model was the trebuchet. It started by using a large weight on one end of a pivoting arm. The arm was pulled back the missile was placed and then let go. The weight went down, the arm went, and the missile launched. The later model gained its power from a tightly wound skein of rope, hair, and skin. the skeins were twisted incredibly tight and then had a wooden arm up to sixty feet long placed in between them. The arm was pulled back using pulleys and rope, the missile was placed in the wood cup and then the arm was released. The arm sprang to a 90 degree angle where it was stopped by a large padded piece of wood. The arm was then brought back down and fired again.
Complex technical studies in recent times have shown that one can split a wooden arrow with another, but that it will become stuck in the first shaft, seems nearly impossible. Nowadays, this would be an ‘honor’ more likely for archers who are using tubular shafts made of aluminum or carbon.
Bow and arrow improved this long-distance effect, have mechanized it and made it more efficient. Now, the extended arm could reach farther and the distance to the target became larger and more secure. From the beginning, man has used this weapon not only for hunting, but also for armed conflict, murder and raids.
The invention and innovation of small firearms spans throughout the world and throughout multiple centuries. The main inventions during the early phases of small arms development quickly gave way to the next innovation, although they were slow to be adapted to military use due to the cost of their production. As time went on these innovations became more and more stagnant to the point of there being no major innovations in the field for close to two hundred years. However, after this stagnant period, there began another period of advanced innovation in the area of small arms technology. The goal of this essay is to understand and dissect the innovations that occurred during these two periods of advanced innovation and the cultural and historical factors that lead to them.
Fishing arrows and Spears were tipped with shell and bone and battle arrows were tipped with fire and poison.