Fascinating Piece on Fire Arrows

[Sukerkin]

I unearthed this whilst browsing the YouTubez .

[video=youtube_share;uL4vnolCwLI]http://youtu.be/uL4vnolCwLI[/video]

I had always wondered how fire arrows were done - other than some vague ideas about pitch I had no real clue so it was very interesting to see it done 'for real'.

 

[jks9199]

Very interesting. I had simply assumed it was pitch/tar/oil soaked rags wrapped around an arrowhead...

 

[elder999]

That's a good depiction of the Roman fire-arrow. It had/has to be fired from a loosely strung bow, because swift flight will extinguish its flames. The Assyrians, Persians, Judeans and Egyptians did all use pitch tows for their fire-arrows, with the advantage of swift flight (and the disadvantage of occasionally igniting an archer or two....:lol: )

In medieval times, Europeans like the Spanish also used pitch.....

cool vid, Sukerkin....


(Oh, yeah, I did these a few times as a kid.....did the Dukes of Hazard thing, too! :lfao: )

 

[Takai]

Very interesting. I will have to follow the advice in the comments to track down his source material for recipes.