Archery Question

[Occhidiangela]

As we watched Troy last night, my son and I got into a discussion about the "great balls of fire" scene, wherein flaming arrows are loosed, followed by pitch soaked (??) balls of hay rolled down the beach in a Bronze Age Incindiary Attack on the beached Greek ships. (Troy is just now out on DvD, missed it while "elsewhere" this summer.)

Has any Lurker ever shot a real flaming arrow?

As I gather, an effective flaming arrow needs to have a pitch/fuel soaked tip as well as resin/pitch in, or coated on, the shaft of the arrow. As a flaming arrow leaves the bow and flies through the air, the flame is forced by airflow back down the shaft toward the feathers. When it lands, it will typically be tail up. Fire falls up. Ergo, fuel above the flame is required to keep the arrow burning long enough and hot enough to ignite whatever structure/thing you are trying to burn or set on fire.

The Trojan arrows, the flaming pre load, landed in sand. Sand does not burn. The flaming tips would be extinguished when buried in the sand. Assumed the arrows had inflammable agent in the back end to keep them alight in the dunes while awaiting the balls of hay to roll over them.

While it was probably "pure Hollywood" (not to mention the Illiad has Hector leading a sortie out into the ships and setting many of them alight) I found myself at a loss to answer my son: "Could it actually work that way?"

Since the first step is getting a flaming arrow to stay lit and remain on fire, has anyone here shot a flaming arrow successfully?

PS. Enjoyed the film, although Homer would hardly recognize the tale. Well, since he was allegedly blind, he'd not be able to see it anyway.

The film was immensely better than the TV show "Helen of Troy." Saw that some months ago while burning some down time "over there." While the film captured an echo of "the rage of Achilles" it did not delve well into character, though Hector came off as I had always pictured him: brave, noble, doomed. We collectively decided, as a family, that young Orlando had better stick to archery, he aint so hot at melee, and that he really should keep his shirt on. Comment from daughter on Brad Pitt: "Man, he really buffed up for the movie."

PPS: Andromache was soooo much prettier than Helen, in terms of which actress was prettier. If Achilles had stolen Andromache from Troy, would Troy have launched two thousand ships? :whistling: Probably not. As noted in last year's discussion on this topic, any old excuse for a war of conquest would do, since Agamemnon had to keep the Greeks fighting someone or they'd go back to fighting one another, which leaves him with . . . a mess.

PPPS: Grrrr, not pleased with the death of Agamemnon scene. At least the TV mini series got that one right.

Occhi