At their prime, they were the most feared tribe, compared with accuracy to the Celts and Spartans. Many competing tribes were driven to the reservation seeking protection from the Comanche expansion. Plenty of eyewitness battle accounts, discussion of tactics and detailing of military strength. For example:
Well worth a read if you're interested in the settling of the West and subjugation of the Indians.Comanches, meanwhile, carried a far more effective and battle-tested assortment of weapons: a disk-shaped buffalo-hide shield, a fourteen-foot plains lance, a sinew-backed bow, and a quiver of iron-tipped arrows. Their abilities with bow and arrow were legendary. In 1834, Colonel Richard Dodge, who was skeptical of the stories of their prowess, nonetheless observed that the Comanche ‘will grasp five to ten arrows in his left hand and discharge them so rapidly that the last will be on its flight before the first has touched the ground, and with such force that each would mortally wound a man at 20-30 yards.’ He also noted that, while for some reason the Indians had trouble shooting conventional targets, ‘put a five-cent piece in a split stick, and by giving a dexterous twist he will make the arrow fly sideways and knock down the money almost every time.’ Their accuracy from the back of a moving horse was, to most white men, astonishing.
