Arrow slots, also called slits or loops were reintroduced to castle architecture in the late 12th century. They allowed the defenders of a castle to shoot at the attackers, while giving them only limited exposure to enemy arrows and bolts. The early forms were a simple vertical slot. These evolved into vertical slot with cross arms. This transverse opening allowed a wider field of view. However, the “X” formed by the cross made a good aiming point, like cross-hairs, for the enemy archers. This evolved into a vertical slot with off-set cross arms. This still gave a wider field of view, but did not make such a good aiming point.

In the new Osprey book “The Longbow” by Mike Loades, on page 46, the author states that the offset transverse arms made it harder for enemy archers to aim to shoot through it and hit the archers inside. This competition is intended to test the validity of this theory. I may pass the results on to Mike Loades on Facebook.

For this Slot Shoot, the competition consists of three targets each representing a different slot: Vertical slot, the Cross Arm slot and the Off Set slot.

Please read the SSAC General Rules, as these apply to all SSAC shoots. Below are the additional rules for this specific shoot.

Range:

The distances are 20 yards, 30 yards and 40 yards. The Youth distances are 10, 15 and 20 yards.

Targets:

The slot is 4 inches wide and 24 inches high.

The cross arm slot is 4 inches wide and 24 high with the arms centered at 12 inches are 4 inches wide and 4 inches high.

The offset slot is 4 inches wide and 24 inches high. The arms are 4 inches wide by 4 inches high. The upper arm is placed on the right side and 6 inches down from the top. The left side arm is 6 inches up from the bottom. This leaves 4 inches between the two arms.

In each of the slots is an 8-inch diameter circle centered at the middle of the 24 inch-slot. Part of it is included in each of the two arms of the cross arm and off-set slots. Within this circle is centered a 3-inch circle. The 8-inch circle does not extend outside of the slots or arms. The 8-inch circle may contrast with the slot, but the 3-inch circle is the same color as the 8-inch and is only outlined. The slots may be either drawn on a larger surface or may be cut out to shape and mounted on their backstop. In the case of a cut-out, the target should contrast with the backstop. You may either use the plain circles or you may draw a face within the 8-inch circle and within the slot as well. If a face is used, the scoring circles must be plainly visible up close for scoring. If drawn upon a larger surface, the area outside of the slots may be made to resemble the stones of a castle wall.

You may use one target and shoot a single face from the three distances before changing the face and shooting the next distance. Or you may set up three targets with the three different faces for each round and shoot them from the three distances. If you have three targets set up, you may shoot all three faces before scoring to save time.

Arrows:

There are three rounds, each consisting of three ends of two arrows at each target face from each distance. A minimum of six arrows is needed to shoot the competition.

Scoring:

The 3-inch circle is 5 points. The 8-inch circle is 3 points. And anywhere else within the slot is 1 point. Arrows cutting a line count as the lower score. Arrows touching the edge of the slot count as zero points. There is a maximum of thirty points per end and a possible maximum total score of ninety points.

In order to compare the difficulty of hitting the different slots to test the validity of Mike Loade’s theory, the scores for each slot type at each range must be recorded separately so that subtotals for each face at all its distances and a grand total for the SSAC score for each archer can be calculated.

Two Printable Score Sheets are available:

Provided by Lord Cameron de Grey from Atlantia

Provided by Lord Randal of Camusfearna from West

Statistics:

Statistics are the reason Sir Jon requested that each segment of each slot be broken out and recorded separately. Now that scores are coming in here is a link to how the different slots are comparing to one another. Slot Statistics