wood arrows & compound bows

[Tartar Horde]

Hello Timelord. When you draw the string on a compound bow those elliptical cams rotate and when they are at the top of their profile it gives the effect of making the bow longer, and also decreasing the string angle making it easier to pull. Those rigid Siyahs on Asiatic composites give the same effect but on a much reduced scale. To visualise what is happening with those cams and Siyahs get two eggs (which are roughly elyptical) and put them with the pointed ends the same way one above the other, now measure from the top of one egg to the bottom of the other one. now rotate both eggs so they are pointing up and down with pointed ends away from each other mimicking the rotating cams, now measure, the distance is greater. this is the principle behind compounds and composites with Siyahs. An added bonus is that it allows long draw lengths from short bows, as attested to by archaeological evidence and modern Asiatic archery methods.
I agree with the need to clarify such terms as "traditional" when talking about the Longbow as the modern Victorian facsimile, used more for gentile archery is far removed from the rough and ready bows of the Hundred years war, but unless you are really into the subject I wouldn't expect most archers to know the difference.
Regarding arrows Timelord you are correct that those heavy "cloth Yard shafts" made out of Ash were very durable and as Ascham says in Toxophilus "give a good stripe" meaning they hit hard, those arrows were never meant to be used for target archery they were designed as artillery, heavy shafts carrying heavy bodkins to lay down fire on masse. This was the key to English archery during the Hundred years war, archers trained from birth to shoot upon command any yardage. This training is carried out today and is know as "clout shooting" where archers shoot at 180yds attempting to hit or land closest to the target, the archers normally shoot in volleys imitating massed archery. To get back to your point in my experience wooden arrows certainly are more forgiving than Aluminium or Carbon, but can never be as accurate. The "flexing you mention is a product of the "spine" the arrow has. This "spine" is the ability, and amount the arrow flexes for the given weight of a bow. The ability of the arrow to bend upon loosing is very important in bows that are not centre cut, ie English Longbow because of what is termed the archers paradox. When you put an arrow on the string of a longbow and look behind the arrow it appears to be pointing off to the left (for a right handed archer) yet the arrow goes straight when shot??? (well hopefully) this is because upon release of the string the arrow bends away from the bow for a fraction of a second allowing it to pass without obstruction, these oscilations continue for a short distance before the fletchings stabilise the arrow. I'm not sure I agree with your point about these oscilations assisting penetration as the arrow has stopped doing this by 10-15 yds due to the effect of the fletchings, but I would be interested if you had some backing for me, knowing as I do that Atlatl darts continue to do this for quite a distance, so there might be something in your proposition.
Accuracy is a hard subject to tackle as it has so many variables and parameters. My statement that wooden shafts will never be as accurate as Aluminium or Carbon is purely based on my modern form of archery and the times I live in. for example you stand the best Olympic archer alongside our English Longbowman of Yore and get them to shoot on command different ranges, of course our Longbowman will destroy our Olympic archer, but the reverse is true regarding our target archer in his field, so how do we gauge accuracy?? The machine tolerances of modern alloy/carbon shafts are so tight as to make each shaft virtually identical in both flight and performance, this can't be done with wood and if it could you would see Olympic and Compound archers still using them at competitions, the fact is not one Olympic archer on the planet uses wood. I shoot Asiatic composites/longbows/recurves and enjoy making wooden arrows, but I will be the first to admit that if I changed to Alloy or Carbon shafts my accuracy would increase simply by having more "uniform" ammunition.
hope this helps