I haven't heard the phrase "more wood behind fewer arrows" before, but I am pretty sure that never in the history of the evolution of projectiles was that tradeoff ever taken in that direction.
That's what makes it so amazing!!! It was a delicious self-parody. I remember reading it and thinking it made absolutely no sense as a metaphor: just imagine the poor archer being told "instead of having 15 arrows to take with you today, we've decided to give you three really heavy arrows"... that was the announcement that really made Google product management feel like a laughing stock to me, and is what I return to thinking about every time they kill another project.
The "more wood" is in the bow, not the arrows. A bigger, heavier bow will shoot arrows with more force, but will take more effort, strength, and time to operate, so shoot fewer arrows harder.
The force of the "more wood" is behind the arrow when pulling it back and shooting (and once you've released, the entire bow is behind it). I get what you're saying though.
I always thought it was something like a comparison between ballistae with fewer shots and larger arrows (javelin size, really) doing more damage, and a storm of smaller regular arrows. Maybe I was being too generous with my interpretation.
> The background seems an oft-used phrase in Sun Microsystems by the former CEO, "all the wood behind a single arrow" which means focus on a single product and be the best in it.
> When deer hunting .. "Real men bring only one arrow. They know how to aim (and they remember to take plenty of time when aiming), and they put all the wood behind that one arrow."
They even managed to find a usage of the same space of metaphor from Apple!
> While the layoffs are intended to reduce operating costs, Apple said it trimmed its technology portfolio to streamline development efforts. “Time to market is very important to me,” Amelio said. “With the narrowing of our focus, we can put more wood behind the arrow.”
> —Stephen Howard, “Narrowing tech focus, Apple cuts 4,100 jobs,” MacWeek, March 17, 1997
I'm a fan of how the phrase gets dumber the more you think about it, and how it's just a way to try to make "put all your eggs in one basket" sound like a good thing. It's delightfully stupid.
In videos I've seen of tests of arrows against armour the shafts usually break, so that the weight of the shaft does not fully go into the penetration.
Stiffer shorter arrows have, therefore, a better chance. Thus the men fighting heavily armoured troops may choose crossbows, which with their long reloading time would literally trade number of shots for heavier shots.
Well putting more wood behind fewer arrows in this case is desirable for them. The point is there doesn't have to be historical precedent for a figure of speech. It just has to effectively communicate something.
Well I did business studies aswell so it might be management speak.
Raise the mass of the arrow and it'll hit with more force. There's a sweet spot for piercing heavy cloth armor. If the arrows are too light, they'll bounce right off.
Well there's the other possible interpretation where wood refers to the bow instead of the arrows. Thus, the larger bow can impart larger momentum to each arrow
