wood arrows & compound bows

[Timelord]

Hello Tartar Horde. Please can you define a few points for us. You say the rotating cams effectively increase the length of the bow.. Is this the length of the limbs or the draw length which is effectively a longer acceleration distance (power curve) of the string before release? I thought it was the latter but I could be wrong seeing as this is not my specialist subject.

Also seeing as some folks like to bring historical war bows into the discussion, this confuses the issue when terms like "traditional longbow" are used. Would this be a historical warbow of the longbow family or a more recent Victorian style of longbow that we are more used to seeing nowadays? It would be good for discussions if we could separate and clarify which type is being referred to at any time or the discussion can go round and round in circles as the points of reference are perceived differently.

One last point I noticed is that while modern aluminium and carbon shafts may be more accurate for modern types of bow, there are two challenges to this:- One is that if we are to use the historical long warbow example, then the heavy duty wood shafts were unlikely to bend or shatter to the same extent as aluminium or carbon. This may apply to some degree to the more modern wood arrows as well. If made from suitable selected and correctly seasoned timber, then they should be remarkably tough. They certainly will not bend out of true like aluminium arrows can. True they do flex at the point of release and this is one characteristic of a wood arrow. It continues to flex throughout its flight. Upon impact this also gives it substantial penetrative power unlike aluminium arrows. I do not know the info for carbon arrows at this time. Point two is for accuracy, the longbow archers of medieval history were reputed in the 14th century to be able to cloud shoot and hit a one foot diameter tin disc laying flat on the grass at 100 to 200 yards. This was supposedly a test of competency. They were supposed to be deadly accurate at flat shooting as well although this was not their training priority. Therefore I do not think that the accuracy of a modern arrow as compared to a good wooden one should be that much of an issue.
I am not trying to teach a grandmother to suck eggs, but please can you clarify the points above. Thankyou & regards, TL.