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I don't know... granted I side with the Idea that if it can damage the brain it kill a zombie, hence lasers doing full damage, as for a compound bow being the only bow to kill a zed, it is just silly.
I mean honestly, if you have any real skill with a bow it shouldn't matter.

Well he is correct... the average "Modern" longbow tends to be about 60 lbf, but if properly manufactured the may have up to around 185 lbf.

((Conspiracy anyone?))

Granted most people don't have the strength to use one of the higher powered ones.

You don't shoot bows at hard targets much then. Nor use bodkin tips.

A bodkin tip with a 45lb draw bow at around 15 yards can punch a hole in mild steel (around 1mm thickness). It won't go all the way through or stick, but it will punch a hole. With something more like 80-100lb draw a bodkin tipped arrow at those distance will very much punch through 1.5mm steel (much stronger then a skull).

A human skull will deffinitely be penetrated by a high draw bow and a properly tipped arrow at shorter ranges. Now a hunting head, which is a broad arrow, or a target head which is rather blunt probably wouldn't penetrate even at short ranges, though the hunting head might with a really high draw bow, like 100+lbs.

A lighter bow won't do it, but a proper long bow or composite bow with bodkin arrows most certainly is capable of putting one in to the head of a zombie.
-Matt

PS indian bows were fairly low draw and their technique for firing a bow, by pinching the bow string, resulted in only a partial draw. It allowed them to fire very, very quickly, but it meant that arrows were normally only fired at maybe around 20-30lbs of draw strength, instead of something like a European or Mongolian short bow which would be pulled with more like 50-75lbs of draw strength (or a long bow which would typically see anywhere from about 110-180lbs of draw strength based on measurements from the Mary Rose). I certainly can't draw a 100+lb bow (non-composite and I am not weak by any streach of the imagination) and actually expect to hit anything.

Oh, looking it up, average human skull thickness is between 3.9 and 4.5mm of bone, that is equivelent to a bit above 1mm of mild steel (something like 1.1-1.2mm of mild steel).
-Matt

There is an article in Rifter #45 for Bows and Arrows, written for Palladium Fantasy that probably could be converted or used for anything. I'm intending to get Dead Reign with an Xmas grab bag hopefully so I can take a look into this. I don't shoot bows, but I've got family who have hunted deer and other critters with bows. Also fond of using archers in games like PFRPG, Rifts etc.

One final note on the buffalo, they also have very, very thick hides which humans/zombies don't have along with thick body hair and thick layers of fat. So an arrow is going to have to penetrate 3-4 inches of hard skin, hair and body fat before it even has a chance to hit any kind of vein, artery or organ (and in lots of parts of the body more like 8-12 inches of penetration before it can hit anything vital).

On a zombie/human it only needs to penetrate about 1-2mm of skin and flesh before striking the skull, which is hard, but very much penetratable. Also what gets me is the low caliber rules on head hits. A .22 caliber pistol round at point blank range is likely to either penetrate the skull, or if if not send bone fragments spalling through the brain from a hit...so even an extremely low caliber round and a decent hit is likely to cause severe brain trauma, let along a .32, .38 or 9mm which are all consider low caliber according to the book I believe (and all of which will penetrate and cause severe damage). The books mention zombies as being twice as strong as a their former selves, but it says nothing about being physically tougher then they were as a human, just more difficult to kill since a lot of damage doesn't hurt them short of dismemberment or brain trauma.
-Matt

Oh, I guess I need to re-read that portion.
-Matt

Because strapping something like even an M80 to an arrow is going to make it much like throwing darts. You'd probably be lucky to hit the broad side of a barn at 100ft with an M-80 strapped to the head of an arrow. You'd have to counter weight the arrow or mount the explosive further back to make it more balanced, which will place it further away.

A good heavy war arrow with a bodkin point I would estimate weighs around 1/2 what a stick of TNT does and is much more aerodynamic. Even well balanced you probably be lucky to send it 300ft arching, let along hit anything.

A 50lb draw bow has enough energy with a bodkin point to put the arrow through the thickness of a human skull at several dozen paces. A 75lb compound hunting bow with a bodkin point would easily be able to do this at 100ft or more. Even a broad headed hunting point would likely do this at several dozen paces with a hunting bow. You don't need extreme force. They were trying to put arrows through a good 2mm of steel breast plate and then penetrate far enough to actually seriously wound the person underneath with a longbow and bodkin point. The human skull is around half the strength of a steel breast plate and takes a lot less energy to penetrate.

As I mentioned earlier a 45lb draw bow with a bodkin tipped arrow will penetrate 1mm of mild steel at 15yds, that is about the strength of the human skull. A 75lb hunting bow is going to do this with a broad headed hunting arrow at about the same range and much, much further with a bodkin tip (a 90-120lb bow is likely to completely skewer a human head in one side and out the other).
-Matt