The Men of the Sea.....

[Numenorean]

Just incase anyone is unfamiliar with the passage that Neurion is reffering to, here it is:

In later days, in the wars upon Middle-earth, it was the bows of the Númenóreans that were most greatly feared. 'The Men of the Sea', it was said, send before them a great cloud, as a rain turned to serpents, or a black hail tipped with steel’; and in those days the great cohorts of the King’s Archers used bows made of hollow steel, with black-feathered arrows a full ell long from point to notch. UT p170

A 45inch arrow fired from a hollow steel bow by a race whose average height is over 6ft 4inches is going to travel a pretty sizeable distance. From what I've read, Rumil is right about there being a history of steel bows in India. With regards to feasible shot distances, apparently in '1798 AD - The Turkish Sultan Selim, witnessed by the British Ambassador, shot an arrow 889 metres ( 972 yards ), a record not surpassed for nearly 200 years.'
Given that the Edainic weaponsmiths who first settled on Númenór 'had with the teaching of the Noldor acquired great skill' in the arts of forging and smithying of weapons, I tend to envisage the hollow steel bows of the Númenóreans to be large, ornate and tremendously powerful.

[Rumil]

Aha !

makes sense to me, (shamefacedly admits to never having realised how long an ell was). I'm much happier with longbows than crossbows in the hands of the Numenoreans for some reason anyway. I must say that that Sultan must have been a hell of a strong archer, that's a really long way!

[Michael Wilhelmson]

It only makes sense, in that a steel bow would have far more tensile strength than a wooden one, and if designed properly, would be an exceptional weapon, second only to perhaps better metals, and the synthetic bows today.