Lack of Archers in Armies

[wgrainger34]

While we do see archery (Theon, Battle of Castle Black, Dorne, Bran, the Wildfire at Blackwater) there is an odd lack of archers in armies in Game of Thrones battles.

We saw archers being used in the Battle of Castle Black and the Battle of the Goldroad, but there is a severe lack of archery in battles.  The period in which Game of Thrones technology can be roughly translated to is 1300s and 1400s: if you look at battles in this time-period, such as Agincourt, Crècy or Sluys, 2/3+ of the armies were composed of archers.  Most battles have almost no archers, and never are most of an army archers.  It simply makes tactical sense for the oncoming armies to use archery instead of just running straight at each other, much of the time.  

In naval battles, there are absolutely no archers.  Archers were characteristic of naval battles of this period like Sluys and Lepanto before corvi were employed to board and capture the ship.  Instead, they seem to use catapults and trebuchets instead of archers.  In “Battle of the Bastards” the Slaver’s Fleet laying siege of Meereen have trebuchets.  It makes sense, because the ships could be anchored in position so they don’t capsize, and trebuchets would inflict damage on the city, whereas archers couldn’t.  But in “Stormborn” when Euron ambushes the Ironborn fleet rendezvousing in the Sea of Dorne, he also uses trebuchets, while moving in a storm on longships, not the Slavers’ galleys.  It seems impractical when archers would be cheaper, and could whittle down Yara and Theon’s numbers while they have no idea where to aim, so when they board the ships, they have significantly less numbers to deal with.  Why does boarding take place commonly when they can just sit in the distance and trebuchet the entire fleet into the sea.

Is there a reason for this? Is there a technological reason that archers have been superseded, or is there a lack of the technology?

[Darryk]

My guess is D+D didnt care about the authenticity of their medieval battles, they just went with what looked cool.

The battle at Winterfell has the cavalry in front of the army and the siege weapons in from of the castle walls rather than behind them.

Also the cavalry charges into darkness and dies. If Mel hadn't conveniently shown up they wouldn't even have had flaming swords.

[Angel Eyes]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

My guess is D+D didnt care about the authenticity of their medieval battles, they just went with what looked cool.

The battle at Winterfell has the cavalry in front of the army and the siege weapons in from of the castle walls rather than behind them.

Also the cavalry charges into darkness and dies. If Mel hadn't conveniently shown up they wouldn't even have had flaming swords.

Strange with the Dothraki, since the previous season had them shooting from the saddle. Why couldn’t they do that?