The Men of the Sea.....

[Neurion]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

I am sure there are people around who know more about archery than me but surely modern bows used for archery are generally metal. I tried only a couple of times a long time ago with a shortish bow of very flexible metal that was easy to draw and probably a great deal less powerful than a traditional yew long bow, however my brother in law had a very powerful metal bow which was of a much heavier metal and had various tensioning arragements - but probably well within Numenorean technology. Despite being strong and 5"10 I could hardly bend this bow at all. B-inLaw was 6"4 so not quite Numenorean height but he could draw this relatively easily.

I am not very up on physics either but I imagine that the great Numenorean stature would allow longer bows and so presumably greater power?

Well, I've always imagined that the Numenorean bows would have been made in the same pattern as a traditional English longbow, one piece with no cams or other devices to lessen the draw-weight, which would make for one heck of a weapon, as a normal wooden longbow can have a draw-weight of up to 200 pounds.

BTW, if your brother-in-law is 6'4" then he's exactly Numenorean average height. I'm 6'3" myself, so I'm just a little bit under; a short Numenorean if you will.