I went to our local archery club's open day many moons ago. An Englishman was there and had brought a yew bow and arrows made from the same materials as those used by the bowmen at Crecy and Agincourt. He was amazing. He fired his first arrow from the usual distance for archery competitions (don't ask me numbers, here), and hit the target more-or-less in the centre. The arrow went damned near all the way through the target (which had a large bale of old hay behind it). The arrow's trajectory was nearly flat. By comparison the archers using modern bows and arrows were having to fire much more up in the air to hit the target.
After that, he fired from much further back.
He was able to fire eight arrows a minute, and he only missed the target once. The arrows made a different noise in flight to modern arrows, too.
Impressed the hell outta me, that! I can imagine what thousands of them at once might have done to the French ...
