Man At Arms: Reforged: Katniss' Bow (The Hunger Games)

[Team Hollywood]

Katniss' Bow (The Hunger Games)

Every other Monday, our team of blacksmiths and craftsman build some of your favorite weapons, and some weapons that you've never seen before. Just in time for the last installment of the Hunger Games movie franchise, the team takes on Katniss's iconic bow!

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[HomuraDidNothinWrong]

Nifty. Interesting to see them do a non-blade weapon, would have liked to see Ilya try to fire it when it was at 100 pounds though. I think he might have been able to.

 

[flying_whimsy]

Nifty. Interesting to see them do a non-blade weapon, would have liked to see Ilya try to fire it when it was at 100 pounds though. I think he might have been able to.

I think they were more concerned with the aluminum core breaking with that kind of strength more than whether or not they could fire it. I've seen bows fail and they can basically explode.

OT: That was neat. And I agree that it was cool to see them do something that wasn't a blade. Those guys always make it look so easy. I could care less about the hunger games, but it would be cool to have a bow like that (a lot harder to use than a compound one, though).

 

[leviadragon99]

Nifty. Interesting to see them do a non-blade weapon, would have liked to see Ilya try to fire it when it was at 100 pounds though. I think he might have been able to.

Yeah Ilya makes it clear in these demos that he's probably the most dangerous member of the team when actually using any of those weapons, if he doesn't have some sort of military combat training then he's probably a self-taught weapons enthusiast in addition to being a Smithing mad-genius.

 

[vallorn]

Nifty. Interesting to see them do a non-blade weapon, would have liked to see Ilya try to fire it when it was at 100 pounds though. I think he might have been able to.

I think they were more concerned with the aluminum core breaking with that kind of strength more than whether or not they could fire it. I've seen bows fail and they can basically explode.

Indeed, it's all about conservation of energy and momentum, when you draw the bow you are storing energy in the bow (not the string so much) as Elastic Potential Energy, when you release the arrow, the bow converts that energy into kinetic energy in the arrow (mostly). In the case of the bow failing, all the energy that would have gone into the arrow now goes into the various parts of the bow, and because of conservation of momentum, it's net final momentum is going to be near 0 so it goes EVERYWHERE (very quickly).

It's the same phenomenon that means you do NOT want to stand near to a high tension wire if it snaps, all the energy stored in the tension and the relatively low mass of the wire means that it will be moving FAST.

OT: Definitely enjoyed this one more than a few of the other recent episodes so good going there.