Re flexed Bows
Many readers of this book may have seen bows with theends bent rather severely backward and wondered why. Theseare known as reflex bows. The idea is not new. The Turksused them during the Crusades; Genghis Khan and his illus-trious grandson, Kublai Khan, armed their foot and horsesoldiers with bows incorporating this principle; it was usedby the Greeks as far back as Homer. This classical design hasbeen handed down to us by tradition and song; it is the bowof Dan Cupid. The reason for its incorporation in modernbows is not tradition or beauty; it is to increase the cast.
As has been pointed out, a short bow will outshoot a longbow for distance. The properly designed reflex bow is a shortbow when the string is at rest (Fig. 11). As the string is drawnthe bow becomes longer (Fig. 12). In Fig. 11, lines AD andBC are about 3 inches long; this makes the line AB 6 inchesshorter than line DC. As the string is drawn, line AB becomes
