54mm white metal kit. Kit includes: Option of two different heads.
History:Welsh and English archers with their “long-bow” played a leading role at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War. The longbow was a very difficult weapon to employ, and the archers had to have practiced from an early age to become proficient .It was its widespread use in the British Isles that gave the English the ability to use it as a weapon but it was the strategic developments that brought it to prominence.The longbow enabled English army to pick battle locations, fortify them, and destroy opposing armies. At that time the French mainly relied on heavy cavalry and crossbows. This one was used because it took little training or skill to operate effectively but it was heavy, slow to reload, and lacked the accuracy of the longbow. The English some time before during the invasion of Wales had learned through defeat what a dismounted bowmen in fixed positions could do to heavy cavalry. Since the arrows shot from a longbow could kill or incapacitate horses or armoured knights, a charge could be dissipated before it even reached an army’s lines. An experienced military longbowman was expected to shoot twenty aimed shots per minute. The sound of hundred of longbows during a battle was called by the French “Devil’s harp”.
