Talk:Recurve bow

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Contents 1 Difference between 'reflex' and 'recurve' 2 Clean up 3 Native Americans 4 Greeks and Phoenicians?

[edit] Difference between 'reflex' and 'recurve'

I think that both these articles are unclear. It seems to me that a reflex bow will curve away completely from the archer, when unstrung, and that a recurve bow only has recurving tips. It seems that an unstrung recurve bow will maintain its shape.

Also, the reflex bow article mentions that most reflex bows are made of wood. It seems to me that the advanced horse archer bows from the peoples of the east, be it huns or mongols, made composite reflex bows made of birch wood, water buffalo horn and sinew. These types of bows are called 'hun bow', 'magyar bow' and 'hungarian bow'.

It seems that the older recurve bows are the older bows of the Assyrians, Parthian and Persians used recurve composite bows.

The normal bow article explains all this well. Maybe someone who actually knows something about bows, and not someone like me who has never touched a bow but who is trying to piece things together using the internet, can edit both articles and have them refer to the correct types of bows.

I do miss information about Chinese and Korean bows. It seems that, at some point in history, the Koreans aquired a composite reflex bow. What kinds of bows the Chinese used in which point in time is not really clear to me.

• It seems off the top of my head that reflex bows aren't necessarily symmetric (the limbs at least)? Every recurve bow I've seen that can be disassembled into the two limbs and the body have functionally identical and balance limbs. Gertlex 04:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up

The article had a lot of out-of-date information and many points were unclear (or had strangely judgemental comments). So I've updated and cleaned it. Apologies if I've trodden on any toes. Mr Barndoor 12:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Native Americans

This is a little confusing: "An unstrung recurve bow can have a confusing shape and many Native American weapons were incorrectly strung backwards and destroyed when attempts were made to shoot them." Do you mean that the Native Americans incorrectly strung their own bows, or that people who later came into possession of the weapons misunderstood the structure and messed them up? It's an important distinction, and I'm not sure which one it is. A reference would probably be good here too. Thanks!--75.85.148.174 (talk) 20:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Your wish is my command! Richard Keatinge (talk) 22:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Greeks and Phoenicians?

How do we know the Greeks and Phoenicians had recurve bows? I had always read we were not so sure about their bows, and also that the Greeks, and also Romans, did not use them extensively. spettro9 04:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)