Did Inca archers really have longbows that shot 2m arrows that could penetrate multiple people?

by M-elephant

Hi, I saw this claim on Wikipedia but couldn't find a better source for it anywhere. It sounds more or less plausible but I'd really like confirmation.

Imperial_Affectation

No. The physics involved just don't make sense.

Bullets cause through-and-through injuries because they're very small projectiles traveling at very high speeds. We're talking about objects that are just millimeters across striking targets at hundreds of meters per second. Since there's such a small surface area, relatively little of the energy is transferred to the target; instead, the bullet just plows straight on through (unless it hits a bone or something, but that's a different story entirely). And even these things tend to be rather bad at hitting multiple people with a single shot unless they've got an enormous casing. Remember, a 9mm bullet is physically larger than 5.56mm NATO bullet even though the latter is fired from a rifle and has a much larger cartridge. All that extra space is being given over to powder (which is why the muzzle velocity is upwards of triple that of the 9mm), which just makes the projectile go further and faster.

The idea of an arrow somehow doing the same just doesn't make sense. An arrow is, at least compared to a bullet, an enormous projectile. The standard 9mm weighs in the vicinity of 8 grams. The heaviest longbows by draw weight that we have evidence to support (courtesy of the Mary Rose) are in the vicinity of 150 pound draw weight, firing arrows that weigh about 95 grams. It's a much heavier projectile, even if dealing with a much more middling weight warbow arrow (~60 grams, or about eight bullets worth). Arrows also have significantly lower velocity. In addition to being heavier, and thus requiring more work to accelerate, bows are also limited by human physiology in a way that guns and bullets aren't. Most bows tend to have a draw distance in the vicinity of 30" because, well, that's pretty much as long as you can realistically get away with. You couldn't very well draw a bow all the way back as far as you could reach, even if weight and material permitted it, because our bodies aren't designed to do that (and you'd probably wind up accidentally smacking yourself in the head with the string). Basically, human muscles are only so strong, human bones are only so resilient, and human arms are only so long, so bows will forever be limited in draw weight.

Because of these limitations, and because of the comparatively high weight of an arrow when measured against a bullet, you're dealing with velocities that are at best about 1/8th of what a bullet will have (and more like 1/25th when talking about assault rifles and the like), even when dealing with the most powerful bows of the pre-industrial period.

In addition to this comparatively weak velocity, arrows also lack the ability to penetrate like bullets. If you look at the design of war arrows, they tend to "barrel" out in the center (high draw weights will shatter long, thin arrows), so the object that needs to pass through a target actually widens over time, exacerbated by the presence of fletchings (which can compress, of course, but doing so can foul them -- especially if they're passing through tissue and bodily fluids). The fact that arrows are also physically larger means they're more likely to strike bone, especially as some of that energy is transferred into the target and the target begins to move in response to being struck.

Also, a 2m long arrow is a 78" long arrow. A 78" long arrow, using conventional practices, would require a draw length of 76". To put that figure into perspective, I shoot 30" arrows and I'm 5'11". Someone with my proportions would have to be approximately 180" tall to justify that 76" draw length (my draw length is ~42% of my height; 76/.42 = 180).

Basically, there's no such thing as a 2m arrow. And the Inca certainly didn't have a magical 2m long arrow that could penetrate steel, which everyone somehow just forgot to mention in the historical record.

The Inca, however, probably had javelins. And javelins, or any other sort of throwing spear, can pretty easily justify a 2m length. That's about what the pilum was, and the assegai seems to have been of a comparable length. That's probably what the line is trying to reference, but javelins aren't exactly known for mowing down multiple opponents in a single shot.