Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Well it looks like Dominions might be passing my Fantasy game test. I know several people have painted me with the "emotional crossbow crusading fanboy troll burger" (say that 5 times fast) brush but all I'm looking for is some kind of parity in my games. Of course I'm still deciding. With a pricy grognard game like this I need to make sure it is right for me.

I made it clear in my first post that I never played Dominions. I saw all the Goons on Somethingawful praise it to high heaven. So I begin my mystic journey and I peruse the forum and see this topic. I think, "Oh how fortunate I get to see if my 'Fantasy game test' applies here." But instead of a unit comparison it's the same ol discussion seen anywhere on these game forums in this time period on this subject with the same sticky problems involved. I am not a troll. To troll one has to have an intent to troll. It was not my intent for you fly into ten orbits after you were corrected on what I said was a silly aside in the first place. I hope all that fresh air from zooming around was invigorating. I was cooped up in the God house reading free verse Bible poetry listening to some rapper talking on a..on a..whatchamacallit all day. ;)


@Incabulos

There are different shows on the History Channel that come to different conclusions. Twelve is way too high. Even if that were the case generally arrows are not carried in numbers greater than 20 in the case of foot archers since packing them tight would crush the fletchings. In other words they would spray out in two minutes and waste a great deal of down time getting porters to refill them dropping the average way down. Crossbowman/Gunman could carry more ammo on their person.

The archers despite flat outnumbering the French horse scouts at Patay could not replicate their success. With a focused charge their horse killing expertise leaves much to be desired as well it seems.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I agree with some of the points you made, but you look like a troll and speak like a troll. Even if it wasn't your intention, your opinion goes against everyone else, you can't give direct links to any sources and you haven't even bothered to try out the demo of the game whose mechanics you are debating. Not to mention that you only registered to take part in this discussion. Unfortunately my junior English dictionary (with pictures!) didn't have the definition of a troll, I'm forced to call you "an internet person who cannot agree with anyone else on anything" instead. :D



Why could a crossbowman carry more ammo than a longbowman? Wouldn't the bolts' fletching be ruined about as easily?

I've found few mentions of crossbows not being able to arc (e.g. in Final Fantasy Tactics: bows can arc, crossbows/guns can't), and about Chinese using line-fighting with crossbows. So your crossbow facts seem to be all right. Unfortunately, it's hard to find longbow facts that someone who doesn't believe the common knowledge would accept as a fact. I'd have to find someone who doubted longbow's usefulness, researched, and changed his mind.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Since you want to be treated like you still don't get it, I'll break it down for you. Read slowly and carefully.

OJD - 6,000 headwords, designed for 7 year olds, primarily containing words that are in a 7 year old's active vocabulary.

Comprehensive dictionary - roughly 500,000 headwords, for adults such as yourself(?), authoritative. Useful for looking up words you don't know. Perhaps you should switch to this big boy dictionary if you're having so much trouble with the OJD.

You don't know what you're talking about, can't admit it and keep posting 'you're wrong' to provoke a response. That's trolling. It was funny at first but you aren't coming up with anything new, so I won't mention it again.

http://curezone.com/forums/troll.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_is_a_troll%3F

About Troll

The Vulgar Troll. These, the crudest of all trolls, make no attempt to hide their species. Often, they make racist comments, or they may post porn and other spam. Vulgars usually confine their comments merely to primitive, profane, off-topic observations. When you log into the Really Profound Serious Philosophical Discussions board and see the post, "I smell my farts," you've spotted the Vulgar Troll. Other species of troll sometimes revert to this form when cornered.

The Deceptive or "Classic" Troll. More sophisticated but often easily identified and exposed, the Classic Troll gratifies his ego by pretending to be someone or something he or she is not. Classics make up elaborate stories about themselves, sometimes weaving some amounts of truth into their lies. As a web of lies is difficult to build with consistency, however, Classics are often "outed" by other forumites. When this happens, Classic Trolls have a bag of tricks to which they turn:

– Classic Troll Tactic Number 1: If the heat gets too much for you, claim it was all "a joke." In this way you can excuse any and all deceit by claiming people just weren't smart enough to "get" the humor of it.

– Classic Troll Tactic Number 2: Create another account, and log on pretending to be someone else, in order to show support for the Troll in Question (TiQ). These puppet accounts sometimes claim to be disinterested third parties. At other times they pretend to be "friends" of the TiQ.

– Classic Troll Tactic Number 3: When your lies paint you into a corner, claim that your little brother, or some unnamed friend, has commandeered your account and made you look foolish. This technique can also be applied in claiming that the puppet account(s) you created may not, in fact, be disinterested third parties or friends, but that they are your relatives ("little brother" is most common) only trying to help support you.

– Classic Troll Tactic Number 4: When nothing else works, claim that now, finally, you're telling the truth about all the lies you told before. Make up a fresh set of lies, and throw yourself on the mercy of the forumites.

– Classic Troll Tactic Number 5: When all else fails, claim to be leaving forever. Trolls who claim they are leaving never do, of course; you can bet that anyone who proclaims, "I'm never coming back here," will most certainly at least check back for responses, and probably will not be able to resist posting again.

– Classic Troll Tactic Number 6: Have a tantrum. When all their other tricks are exhausted, Classic Trolls will become angry and start shouting. Often they revert to Vulgar Trolls when this happens.

– Classic Troll Tactic Number 7: The insincere apology. Similar to Tactic 4, this involves pretending to repent for one's trolling and is accompanied often by great melodrama. Insincere troll apologists hope that they'll be forgiven if only they act disgusted enough with their own behavior.

The Contrarian Troll. A sophisticated breed, Contrarian Trolls frequent boards whose predominant opinions are contrary to their own. A forum dominated by those who support firearms and knife rights, for example, will invariably be visited by Contrarian Trolls espousing their beliefs in the benefits of gun control. It is important to distinguish between dissenters and actual Contrarian Trolls, however; the Contrarian is not categorized as a troll because of his or her dissenting opinions, but due to the manner in which he or she behaves:

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number One: The most important indicator of a poster's Contrarian Troll status is his constant use of subtle and not-so-subtle insults, a technique intended to make people angry. Contrarians will resist the urge to be insulting at first, but as their post count increases, they become more and more abusive of those with whom they disagree. Most often they initiate the insults in the course of what has been a civil, if heated, debate to that point.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Two: Constant references to the forum membership as monolithic. "You guys are all just [descriptor]." "You're a lynch mob." "You all just want to ridicule anyone who disagrees with you."

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Three: Intellectual dishonesty. This is only a mild indicator that is not limited to trolls, but Contrarians display it to a high degree. They will lie about things they've said, pull posts out of context in a manner that changes their meanings significantly, and generally ignore any points for which they have no ready answers.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Four: Accusing the accusers. When confronted with their trolling, trolls immediately respond that it is the accusers who are trolls (see Natural Predators below). Often the Contrarian will single out his most vocal opponent and claim that while he can respect his other opponents, this one in particular is beneath his notice.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Five: Attempts to condescend. The Contrarian will seek refuge in condescending remarks that repeatedly scorn his or her critics as beneath notice – all the while continuing to respond to them.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Six: One distinctive mark of Contrarian Trolls is that every thread in which they dissent quickly devolves into a debate about who is trolling whom. In the course of such a debate the Contrarian will display many of the other Warning Signs mentioned above.

The YerATroll. YerATrolls are those whining forumites who devote a tremendous amount of time and energy complaining about the tremendous amount of time an energy expended by Troll Bashers and Angry Forumites on the practice of troll-hunting. A self-righteous and hypocritical breed, YerATrolls spend all their time pointing fingers at everyone but trolls, petulantly demanding that their opinions be granted the significance the YerATroll believes they deserve. YerATrolls often start threads excoriating others for troll-hunting, all the while completely oblivious to the fact that they're engaging in trolling by picking fights with everyone else. One of the most ill-tempered of troll species, YerATrolls are characterized by a childish need for attention disguised as cynical nobility and pretensions of being "above it all."

The Agenda Troll. Agenda trolls are those participants who join a forum specifically to pursue an agenda of their own – often a feud or grudge with another member, or perhaps a dispute with some party not participating in that forum. When a flame war erupts on another board, for example, Agenda Trolls will follow their opponents to other forums in order to continue the spat.

– Some Agenda Trolls are subject-matter oriented. An Agenda Troll who thinks Self-Defense Instructor X is a fraud, or who feels he has been ripped off or otherwise dealt with unfairly by Instructor X, will visit forums devoted to self-defense and martial arts in order to spread his or her negative opinion of Instructor X.

– Agenda Trolls may also be of the milder Spam Agenda subspecies; these are Trolls who join a board specifically to advertise some venture of their own. They are not often troublesome, though their shameless plugging is met with varying degrees of irritation.

The Sophist Troll. Sophist Trolls, or "philotrolls," fancy themselves Enlightened Philosophers or Learned Experts of the highest order. Often well educated, Philotrolls are capable of speaking intelligently on a number of topics, and when the spirit moves them they can be worthwhile forum participants. Unfortunately, Sophist Trolls are an extremely hostile and intolerant species.

When confronted by opinions with which they do not agree – particularly when they do not see any means of successfully arguing their contrary views – Sophists resort (repeatedly) to a variety of intellectually dishonest tactics. Most often, this is characterized by an overly snide, condescending, patronizing attitude. Philotrolls consider anyone with whom they do not agree to be "immature," and are fond of quoting that old saw that "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

When cornered they are quick to resort to personal attacks. A philotroll's bag of rhetorical tricks includes a variety of transparent ploys, such as willfully misinterpreting the opponent's words, committing Straw Man fallacies, accusing his or her opponents of engaging in the very tactics used by the philotroll, and so forth.

When engaging in their sophistry, philotrolls are among the most hypocritical and aggravating of trollkind.

The Affected Profundity Troll. A mutant subspecies of Sophist Trolls, Affected Profundity Trolls post endless pages of pretentious drivel that is intended to appear wise, but which generally makes little sense (if any). Affected Profundity Trolls enjoy asking themselves questions, sometimes answering them and sometimes leaving them hanging, for they believe this looks intelligent and lends an aura of mystery to their incoherent ramblings. Affected Profundity Trolls aspire to become Sophist Trolls, but lack the intelligence necessary to make the leap.

The Don King Troll. Related to Affected Profundity Trolls, Don King Trolls spout gibberish in the hope that they'll either bore or confuse to death those with whom they disagree. The average Don King Troll is "a pursuitist who gromulates his adversarial computerists with height defining formulations to the disinterestingest adjunct."

The Artistic Troll. A higher species of Classic Troll, Artistic Trolls are intelligent individuals who understand the subtle art of trolling, and who do what they do specifically to make others look foolish. Often employing the techniques of Deceptive Trolls, Artistics will string forumites along until some point in time designated by their own desires, at which point they will reveal the ploy, admit that it was a ploy, and laugh at everyone for being stupid enough to fall for it. Artistic Trolls delight in sowing discord, but do it in a highly developed and fully aware manner. They do not care if they are despised, and do not seek the approval of forum participants. Chaos is their only goal, and preferably chaos with a humorous bent to it. Without a doubt, this is the most dangerous species.

The Bitter Troll. Bitter Trolls are a curious cross-species. They can be trolls of any breed in their larval stages, but become Bitters after their previous activities are seen for what they were. What sets these trolls apart from other classifications is their behavior after they have been spotted and labeled as trolls. Angry, frustrated, and resentful about being "outed," the Bitter Troll will wage a campaign of indignant complaints intended to focus attention away from the troll and on whomever is responsible for identifying the creature. Often, a troll mutates into a Bitter just prior to becoming a Vulgar.

The Bustr. Bustrs are obsessive Bitters by whom you could practically set your watch. A Bustr never forgets, never forgives, and holds a grudge until the day it dies. Also a variant of Agenda trolls, Bustrs typically move from forum to forum complaining about the objects of their ire, often cutting and pasting age-old diatribes that have little meaning to most of their audiences. Most Bustrs are relatively incoherent, though a few of the more lucid ones are potentially dangerous stalkers.

The Mutt. Alternatively known as Dogs or Yapping Dogs. Mutts are pack animals characterized by their loud barking – vociferous, repetitive, usually ignorant and irrational criticism of anything and anyone they do not like. Mutts frequently become obsessed with a few or even a single poster with whom they disagree, often for purely personal reasons. Like a dog gnawing at a bone, the Mutt will attack the object of its ire over and over again, making a fool of itself in the eyes of those who understand such childish behavior for what it is. Often one Mutt in a group of Yapping Dogs will act as the alpha of the pack, while the others chime in to voice their mindless (but loud) support for their leader's opinions.

The Holy Misroller (HM). Holy Misrollers are those online forum participants who give Christians (or other religious adherents) a bad name. The HM believes himself or herself to be a Christian (etc.) and will generally tell anyone who'll listen about his or her faith in God and in Jesus. At the same time, however, the HM will display decidedly un-Christian behavior, frequently making an *** out of him- or herself. The HM is often characterized by a great deal of anger and hostility. The breed tends to lash out at anyone and anything not in keeping with its incorrectly narrow worldview. The saddest part about HMs is that they do not truly understand Christianity at all.

The Marketing Genius. A Marketing Genius is absolutely convinced that you are profiting from your participation in an Internet forum. If you have a link or a graphic block in you signature, the Marketing Genius just knows that this is your subtle attempt to assert your hypnotic powers on other bulletin board participants, luring them with the siren song of your complex and inscrutable advertising of your site. It does not matter to the Marketing Genius that forum members have been placing links and pictures in their signatures since the ability to do so was first created. Having never created anything of value themselves, Marketing Geniuses have only their bitter envy and their firm belief that you are a Dot Com Billionaire to motivate and occupy them.

The Honorable Nitwit. Honorable Nitwits absolutely love to speak about honor. This breed invokes the concepts of honor, integrity, humility, and other traits straight from the Boy Scout Oath more often than a Klingon warrior on anti-depressants. Honorable nitwits are convinced that everyone around them suffers from a lack of honor – an idea they thoroughly fail to understand in attempting to use its lack to smear others.

The Old Warrior. The Old Warrior has been there and done that. He has little time to spare for those who have not been there and done that. The Old Warrior has been there and done that to such an extent, in fact, that he is always right. Anyone who disagrees with him, therefore, is wrong by definition and should shut the hell up. Old Warriors place a very high premium on one's credentials relevant to the subject matter discussed – failing to understand the logical fallacy of appeals to authority.

The Forum Cultist. Forum cultists are extremely proud of the incredible Internet communities to which they belong. They pride themselves on the exclusivity of those communities and actually believe that "it can't happen to them" – "it," of course, being their own banishment. Forum cultists place a very high premium on groupthink and generally react to differing opinions with outrage, banning all who dare to speak them.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Er, do you have a problem with the English or British?

Firstly, you seem determined to not just deny any credit to them for use of the longbow, but to make out they were cheap, and only won battles because the French were incompetent.

Now you're making bizarre accusations that they repeatedly get "stuck" using old and inefficient technologies and practices. On what grounds would you argue they were any worse than any other race nation? How do you explain they were and still are near the front of technological advancement since about 1700?

* * *

I know Wikipedia is not the most reliable source of information but...

This is the point. It's not that longbows are worldwide and strong bows are worldwide. It that bows - of any sort - with draw weights of an English longbow were very rare as battlefield weapons. Getting thousands of men who can pull a 220N bow effectively is a very different matter from getting thousands who can pull an 600-900N bow.

I maintain that extra weight a) made the bows much more effective and b) that it required the sort of training the English king compelled on his subjects. Which makes the English longbow not just your average bow fired by your average archer.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I must say the most powerfull bow in history is not the english (wales in fact) longbow, but the indian one. It was much less precise however, as it was used by an archer lying on his back.

As a french, I must say our noble knights ultimately understood that they needed not to expose themselves to ennemy fire too much, and finaly got rid of the many english tourists that weren't willing to go back to their ill-climated homeland, even after the legal expiration of their visas.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Hey, by percentage battles won of those fought, since the fall of the Roman Empire the French have the most successful military in Europe. A few blips against longbow-wielding English are neither here nor there. :)

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

That was Quite Interesting :D

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

You find out all sorts of great things watching TV. ;)

The right TV programs, anyway. :p

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I didn't knew that, anyway during the last century we've been trying hard to lower those stats, they don't fit with our natural sense of Modesty.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Heh, Agema read your private messages, if you have not done so already!

Sorry to interrupt the discussion!

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

For what it is worth- Drawing a full longbow is incredibly muscle intensive. Firing at the max rate of fire was only possible for a minute or two before even the most comptent bowmen gave out. Realistically, after the initial volley most bowmen would pace themselves to a much slower rate of fire- faster than a crossbow, but not to the point of firing every few seconds.

On top of that, any archer who fired at the speed people have been describing would empty his quiver within minutes. The most arrows I have ever read of an archer carrying was 60, and that was in multiple quivers, and they were smaller arrows for a horsebow. (Marco Polo's decription of a mongolian warrior)

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

accounts of Crecy describe porters continually bringing arrows from the supply lines.

It also described that a ferocious rate was only needed for the first charge. The resulting field of long arrows and crippled horses etc meant the second charge was much less of a threat.

A barrier of dead horses was actually achieved. Of course Crecy is an example of where the longbow really shined, and was put to great tactical use. The terrain forced a difficult charge and approach from a single direction.

In modern tests they did show that it wasn't until the last 1/4 of a charge (when the knights were almost at the base of the hill) that the arrows penetrated armor. The first 1/4 of the charge and almost no arrows hit even the horse. The last 1/4 of the charge almost all the arrows would hit. The targets looked like hedgehogs.\\they also timed the charge to cover the field and it took 40 seconds. That is an awful long time to be under fire from that many longbows. Crossbows simply would not have been as effective.

Seems to me crossbows would excel at taking down slower moving heavily armoured infantry.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Heh, join a game MachineGun. Would like to have you in the game.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Perhaps as MA/LA Marignon? Hordes of crossbowmen boosted with Flaming Arrows, perhaps Wind Guide later on, protected by a small screen of infantry. Preferably shielded, to protect from friendly fire.

In fact, MA Marignon vs MA Man would be an interesting matchup. Marignon has crossbowmen, decent infantry and good cavalry, and the inquisition+Paladins and the comment in the manual imply that it's inspired by Spain with some French influence. Man is English/Britain, with longbowmen, elite mounted and unmounted knights, and worse normal infantry.

Inquisition versus the witches of Avalon makes for even funnier matchup.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

'Burn the witch!'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MONKS: [chanting]
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
CROWD:
A witch! A witch!
[bonk]
A witch! A witch!
MONKS: [chanting]
Pie Iesu domine...
CROWD:
A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've found a witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've got a witch! A witch! A witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! We've found a witch! We've found a witch! A witch! A witch! A witch!
VILLAGER #1:
We have found a witch. May we burn her?

CROWD:
Burn her! Burn! Burn her! Burn her!
BEDEVERE:
How do you know she is a witch?
VILLAGER #2:
She looks like one.
CROWD:
Right! Yeah! Yeah!
BEDEVERE:
Bring her forward.
WITCH:
I'm not a witch. I'm not a witch.
BEDEVERE:
Uh, but you are dressed as one.

WITCH:
They dressed me up like this.
CROWD:
Augh, we didn't! We didn't...
WITCH:
And this isn't my nose. It's a false one.
BEDEVERE:
Well?
VILLAGER #1:
Well, we did do the nose.
BEDEVERE:
The nose?
VILLAGER #1:
And the hat, but she is a witch!
VILLAGER #2:
Yeah!
CROWD:
We burn her! Right! Yeaaah! Yeaah!
BEDEVERE:
Did you dress her up like this?
VILLAGER #1:
No!
VILLAGER #2 and 3:
No. No.
VILLAGER #2:
No.
VILLAGER #1:
No.
VILLAGERS #2 and #3:
No.
VILLAGER #1:
Yes.
VILLAGER #2:
Yes.
VILLAGER #1:
Yes. Yeah, a bit.
VILLAGER #3:
A bit.
VILLAGERS #1 and #2:
A bit.
VILLAGER #3:
A bit.
VILLAGER #1:
She has got a wart.
RANDOM:
[cough]
BEDEVERE:
What makes you think she is a witch?
VILLAGER #3:
Well, she turned me into a newt.
BEDEVERE:
A newt?
VILLAGER #3:
I got better.
VILLAGER #2:
Burn her anyway!
VILLAGER #1:
Burn!
CROWD:
Burn her! Burn! Burn her!...
BEDEVERE:
Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
VILLAGER #1:
Are there?
VILLAGER #2:
Ah?
VILLAGER #1:
What are they?
CROWD:
Tell us! Tell us!...
BEDEVERE:
Tell me. What do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2:
Burn!
VILLAGER #1:
Burn!
CROWD:
Burn! Burn them up! Burn!...
BEDEVERE:
And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1:
More witches!
VILLAGER #3:
Shh!
VILLAGER #2:
Wood!
BEDEVERE:
So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3:
B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?
BEDEVERE:
Good! Heh heh.
CROWD:
Oh, yeah. Oh.
BEDEVERE:
So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1:
Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEVERE:
Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #1:
Oh, yeah.
RANDOM:
Oh, yeah. True. Uhh...
BEDEVERE:
Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1:
No. No.
VILLAGER #2:
No, it floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1:
Throw her into the pond!
CROWD:
The pond! Throw her into the pond!
BEDEVERE:
What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1:
Bread!
VILLAGER #2:
Apples!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1:
Cider!
VILLAGER #2:
Uh, gra-- gravy!
VILLAGER #1:
Cherries!
VILLAGER #2:
Mud!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, churches! Churches!
VILLAGER #2:
Lead! Lead!
ARTHUR:
A duck!
CROWD:
Oooh.
BEDEVERE:
Exactly. So, logically...
VILLAGER #1:
If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.
BEDEVERE:
And therefore?
VILLAGER #2:
A witch!
VILLAGER #1:
A witch!
CROWD:
A witch! A witch!...
VILLAGER #4:
Here is a duck. Use this duck.
[quack quack quack]
BEDEVERE:
Very good. We shall use my largest scales.
CROWD:
Ohh! Ohh! Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Ahh! Ahh...
BEDEVERE:
Right. Remove the supports!
[whop]
[clunk]
[creak]

CROWD:
A witch! A witch! A witch!
WITCH:
It's a fair cop.
VILLAGER #3:
Burn her!
CROWD:
Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn! Burn!...
BEDEVERE:
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
ARTHUR:
I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
BEDEVERE:
My liege!
ARTHUR:
Good Sir Knight, will you come with me to Camelot and join us at the Round Table?
BEDEVERE:
My liege! I would be honored.
ARTHUR:
What is your name?
BEDEVERE:
'Bedevere', my liege.
ARTHUR:
Then I dub you 'Sir Bedevere, Knight of the Round Table'.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

This is the best thread ever.

Even if I didn't find myself described in that Troll List..... < sniff >

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Thank you. I started the "best thread ever". I am honored.

Now, please make it stop.

Though a youtube link to the Monty Python bit would be better than the transcript.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

You forgot the best weapon of marignon. Flagellants.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I posted that from work.. nyet to youtube. But you are right, the timing and voices aren't done justice by the transcript.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I still say that machineguns are superior to longbow, despite the victories of the English.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Seeing as the longbow/crossbow discussion is petering out, surely its time for someone to bring up the old katana vs western sword chestnut?

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Well looking at Thilock Dominus' list I can see how I fit parts of certain profiles, Contrarion and Agenda, made me blush a bit. But I have not done any different than any other poster sharing what they know. I did not notice many dropping down the hardcore literary works and I don't have a problem with that but I don't feel that what I have been saying has been that alien. I think part of the problem is that some of you take section of things you've heard about their battles that have been...romanced up and you make inferences about mechanics. I'm taking what non-expert knowledge I have about bow mechanics and combining them with the same non-expert knowledge on somewhat lesser known battles. I played the demo a long while ago. I don't know if it has changed but the one I had was limited to the early age and I did not see an active faction with the whole breadth of weapons. I read about crossbows shooting in the back from an AAR about the faction who develops into a "cave blind society" I don't remember the name. It was when the forums were a light brown color. I had forgotten about this game, distracted with school and remembered it when I saw it on Somethingawful.

Plus some of the things I thought should have been easy to look up. Take what I said about arrows and the devices that modern times have come up to help us with them. Take a look at this archery site that explains how to adjust the plunger button and "tune" your arrows.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar...oliviritys.htm

Look at the little diagram. Remember where I said the arrow was against the bow? See how the arrow is wiggling on its node points? Look at all the complicated steps you need to take to make sure it's a good arrow and then adjusting the plunger. Doing the test again with and without fletchings. See the grouping. I think the site mentions that's at a mere 7 seven meters. That distance becomes even more awful at "need to kill a man range." And this is WITH a modern bow. WITH modern arrows. WITH high-tech materials And WITH devices like a plunger to make you sure you get it right.

Now go back and look at medieval times. How could they know even a smidgen of what we know now? Imagine the quality control with the need to crank out all those arrows. Would they all test them like that? Did they even have the tools to do so? Even if they could would they?

And that's just the weapon itself. Look at what must be done with actually shooting it.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar.../tekniikka.htm

Look at the steps. The need to stand in the proper posture. The need to hold the bow correctly. Here's a sentence in the very beginning that stands out.

"
The shooting with a bow consists of an unbreakable chain of different operational acts which are executed million and again million times the same way."

That sounds familiar...;)

Look at the anchor. I forgot completely about the need to maintain vertical sameness much less the same draw distance. Look at how utterly minuscule the differences is to mess up your sighting and your aiming.

Now imagine trying to do all of this while someone is trying to kill you. It makes more sense to me to consider longbowmen as still "men" and not stone cold archery robots. Which is what you'd have to be to do this the "same way" especially in combat. This is why I inwardly groan when people talk about their "training." Longbowmen practicing on Sunday does not turn them into those robots anymore than me shooting cans off the fence (on Sunday) makes me into John Rambo. In real combat I would shoot much worse and my pants would be filled with a not insignificant amount of poo.

Several reasons. One they tend to be more compact and so they can easier be reached from multiple packs on your person. Charles VIII of Sweden's xbowmen had something around 7 dozen of these quarrels this way. I believe archers of all kinds tend to wear their ammo on a hip. A longbow arrow is...well long and trying to extend you arm way up to pull it from it's quiver from many angles is going to be...very awkward compared to a quarrel. Also some bolts depending on their usage did not bother with fletchings at all. An arrow without fletchings will behave much much worse compared to a quarrel without one. Quarrels are also therefore are more tolerant of different materials. Since the projectile sits on a tiller the fletchings aren't going to contact the bow in the same way an arrow would and could therefore use much stronger and stiffer materials.

Well the internet absorbed so much pro-longbow stuff since the usenet days it's difficult to find. When I tried to scrounge up something on the battles I mentioned I found this blog.

http://wapenshaw.wordpress.com/2008/...bow-the-final/

He mentions Constance (which I mentioned a while back) here as well as Nogent . But do an experiment. Look up Mauron which is mentioned but ultimately an English success. It comes up easy. Try looking up the Battle of Nogent and Constance. Notice it's not so easy. That's not a coincidence. He also tears Robert Hardy a new one who I dislike as well for those two reasons and more. Look at some of the things you've been digging up on longbows on the net. You'll see his name A LOT. I know many of you cry shock and horror about my insinuations of "longbow fanboyism" but the bias on the Internets is quite real.


No, I mentioned them kicking butt at Assaye did I not? The longbow isn't "theirs" because it's everywhere. The longbow literally sat next them the whole time in Wales. To suspect that they just noticed this "awesome" weapon very LATE to the party is much more of an insult to them. When the French were competent and focused they won handily. When they weren't they lost.

England falls into those traps like other nations do. China is the biggest example. They get set in their ways and caught in a loop. Making the longbow edict turned it into a part of their culture. They were as reluctant to leave it regardless of merit. It is simply something that has happened before. That is all.

The wiki article is very ...misleading to put it lightly. I might use "wrong" but certain individuals can get prickly with that word. :D It seems to mention modern average bow weight plus the key sentence there is suitable for hunting. "Bows for warfare tend to be much more powerful" and then it mentions two examples. Longbows were not ahead of the curve in any capacity.

@Incabulos:

Porters would have slowed down the overall process. And again the crossbow is a much more cohesive weapon. Focusing on the front ranks of a charge would hamper/trip other horseman. Jan Zizka fended off charges with crossbows all the time and never lost a battle. French scouts which meant that their horses would not be piled up with armor stomped the longbowmen at Patay.

@Lingchih:

I haven't gotten the game yet. When I come into some money I'm sure you will stomp a mudhole in me regardless of weapon as I will be quite the n00b.

@Endoperez:
Sounds like marignon is clearly the superior faction. ;)

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I'm in as soon as we get into the Alien vs Predator one :D

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Early Age doesn't have any crossbows, I think. If any nation has them, it'd be Tien Chi, the "chinese" faction. Longbows are also pretty rare in EA, although I think one of the demo nations (Kailasa, inspired by India) has them.

The "shooting in the back" happens when the enemy forces run away and your own units try to catch up with them. Imagine 60 crossbows aiming at the three retreating militias from halfway across the battlefield, and wounding or even killing several of your own infantry who had almost caught up with them.

It can also happen with bows, of course.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

That was a pretty good post MachinGun, informative and calm, this is a post I can appreciate :)


I don't know where you were reading that, but you are most certainly talking about Agartha. I don't remember for sure when they get crossbows, but I think they have them in all ages other than early. You missed all the crossbows, as they do not appear at all in the early age. There are a select few who do get them in MA though. I'm pretty sure no nation gets a full selection from all the different types of ranged weapons in one era. For example MA or LA T'ien Ch'i gets Composite Bows and Crossbows, whereas for example LA Man gets Longbows and Crossbows. In EA most nations have only shortbows, slings and javelins, while T'ien Ch'i for example always has crossbows. In case you'd be interested in a rundown, human nations rate their weapons from slings to short bows, then composite bows, then longbows, then crossbows. There is also a heavy crossbow that does a bit more damage but fires slower. And to more directly address what you were talking about, the poster was probably referring to Agarthans poor eyesight causing them to take a lot of friendly fire. Archery tends to cause a lot of friendly fire in Dominions, and Agarthans are even worse because they have low precision. Every ranged weapon is capable of shooting over other units though.

Okay, that site you linked made my brain bleed, I'm sorry. I just could not force myself to read through it, it was too painful. I do want to say though that I've done a bit of amateur archery, and it isn't nearly as complicated as that is making it out to be to hit a target with a modern compound bow. Within a week I was able to hit a standard archery target reliably from 20-30 yards. And I should add that that wasn't even with all of the modern equipment like stabilizers and easy release triggers. These people are trying to make your shots perfect, for very serious archers trying to be as accurate as possible. That certainly isn't me, I could never take something that seriously :).

In a way, I think being trained on a medieval bow would be better for the archer than being trained on a modern one. The reason being, with a modern bow, your accuracy depends on the accuracy of your instruments. Sights, stabilizer, etc. With an unadorned bow, your accuracy relies on YOU, and should be a lot less fiddly. Plus it will teach you more. You'll spend more time watching the environment around you, learning how to adjust for wind etc. If you're a good judge of distance, once you've got the basics down it shouldn't be too hard to adjust to range to a reasonable degree.

I think they would do a certain degree of testing. Obviously they didn't know as much as we do now, but they knew some of it, possibly even a good deal of it. Or at least understood enough to figure out ways to improve their accuracy. Someone serious about their skill, like a real soldier, would certainly have put in a lot of time and effort improving their marskmanship.

Actually, it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. It's like riding a bike, playing a sport, learning how to drive... it will take you a while to master it, but once you have it just comes naturally. Have you ever fired a gun? It's pretty similar. If you don't stand correctly, if you aren't holding the gun right, if you pull the trigger poorly, all of those can muck up your accuracy. And like with a gun, getting any part of your actions wrong will reduce your accuracy, but you can be reasonably accurate even doing so. Now, I'm not specifically going to talk about the skill level of the average english longbowman, since I am the first to admit I know absolutely nothing about what their training regimen might look like or how well disciplined they might be. But with regular practice and some combat experience, I would expect a competent archer to be able to hit their mark the reasonable majority of the time. Not perfectly except at reasonably close distance, but perfection isn't completely needed on the battlefield either, that's more for tournaments.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I don't think T'ien Ch'i has crossbows in the early age, however their composite bows are superb for the ea setting. And yeah, kailasa does have longbows on the bandar archers.

I guess you can ignore what I said about shooting in the back, that does happen and at times I've lost more troops to my own archery as the enemy force retreated than to their infantry.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

It has nothing to do with 'shooting in the back' though. It's just that at range missiles weapons are no longer accurate and projectiles are much more likely to hit your own troops and irritate you when there are like 3 enemy soldiers running away and your army of 300 is hot on their heels.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

the length of the post does nothing to change the fact that you have been simply *wrong* on many points. The first being that the strength of the pull does affect the range fired.

The second being that while you can find exceptions(such as repeating crossbows), that the rate of fire of longbows *is* much greater than crossbows. So much so that that crossbows were fired and reloaded in ranks.

Generally, a nation that puts the most effective fighting force on the field at the cheapest cost wins. Of course there are all kinds of exceptions. But crossbows allowed a very cheap unit to kill very expensive units.

I'm guessing at the numbers - but crossbows were 80% as effective at 20% of the cost. With the primary cost here for longbowmen being a restricted pool of conscripts caused by the lengthy training time, and the difficulty in churning out bows.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

One quick note - longbows, unlike crossbows, were used as an indirect fire weapon in battle (firing in high arc, the arrows coming from above). As such, it was much more difficult to take cover from them.

On the other hand, crossbow bolts from heavy crossbows were fired with terrible force - contemporary sources say they could pierce an armored knight altogether. The fact that the Pope issued a bula forbidding Christians to use crossbows against each other only prove, how feared weapon it was.

I think the composition of troops was also mainly determined by regional tradition - in England, archery had long tradition and therefore the populace supplied large numbers of bowmen. In real life, you cannot just "build" archers for money as in most games. The only game I know that reflect this is Crusader Kings - your nobles bring their subject to fight, and the troop composition depends on the social classes and terrain of the province, and you as a king can't influence it.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

@endoperez and rdonj: Ah I see. Well at least I know I wasn't completely crazy and imagined the whole thing with the cave people.

Well again I doubt a medieval bow made in medieval times could even approach something that quality wise to a modern one. The assumption that a medieval archer could be better than one with all the accessories seems dubious because in that particular example the question of the archers personal skill is not the key factor it appears in others minds which is what I was trying to get at. The weapons made in those days were simply not the quality to allow an archer assuming he could be that skilled to shoot in that manner precisely because he doesn't know how his next shot would behave. To assume that much relies on personal skill is to assume that those medieval longbows are essentially "perfect."

There were guilds that attempted to do so certainly it's where we get the surname Fletcher from, but given that so many things can go wrong when creating arrows relative to modern times I am simply not seeing any real accuracy coming from there. And in terms of the need to crank them out in the sheer numbers required even if they could technically do so they wouldn't be able to. Also many of these arrows wouldn't survive in reusable condition if tested in a bow used for warfare.

Well laid plans and training surviving combat in 100% percent capacity seem unlikely to me. Riding a bike on a battlefield is going to be a distinctly different experience. And as practiced as those steps could be there are still a lot of them with much less tolerance for variation. I can minimize my profile crouching with crossbow/firearm for instance and still maintain proper form. In terms of sheer number of things that can go wrong those weapons have them much much less than bows by removing how much human error can effect them. Can a longbowman draw a bow back to the same spot when wounded, when sick, when scared out of his mind? Because a crossbow must be drawn to the nut and cannot be anywhere else it is going to be in it's proper place every single time. Minimizing the effects human error is a very significant advantage.

Arrows have be balanced according to their bows. They have to be pulled the same way, every single time. You can't vary the pull as you claimed. The arrow will veer off in a *significant* manner. You won't have a smidgen of a hope of hitting anything. You will have negative hope. You will owe me some hope. That is how bad it will be.

It isn't that much greater because you could not maintain it and the number you implied was simply too high in any case. Add to the fact that they could not be as accurate and the quality per arrow even if they DID hit was simply not as good presents a different picture. There is a rate and an effective rate.


Crossbows are not cheap. Where do people get the notions that they were cheap? You need bowmaking skills to make the bow part of the weapon. You need someone to fashion the trigger and the small mechanics. Someone to fashion a tiller. Someone to make the string. Someone to make the device to reload the weapon. And the person to put it together could be completely different. With a bow one dude can make a bow and that is often how it was done. Someone who could produce a complete crossbow on his own was very rare and needed more people. People who had to be organized and communicate to one another. The sheer complexity of construction and the number of folks needed to be *paid* shows that this idea is faulty.

All medieval armies canvassed among their healthy citizens for soldiers and martial practice throughout their life was normal for multiple nations and so much of training is "free." This was the advantage of having troops bring their own weapons after all. When you have to start paying them yourself is when the costs rise up.

@Kamamura: Crossbows can do that too. Again there is no indirect specialty of the bow. There are helmets recovered from Wisby penetrated by bolts that came down I believe.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I think the point Kamamura is trying to make was that wasting crossmen men to simply saturate a field indirectly is pointless. Where the longbow is more easily fielded (think AK-47's), the crossbow due to it's higher cost and greater precision fire seems to be more like a sniper rifle.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Hmm, I didn't quite mean it that way. What I was trying to say that I think training an archer on a longbow as opposed to a compound bow would be better in the long run for the archer, because it would foster more the personal skill of the archer. With a compound bow you rely on a lot of crutches to maximize your accuracy. Sights on your bow that can and frequently do come loose from the force expended in firing. Special release triggers that could break in the middle of battle or get lost in a baggage train. All those niggling little things in that article you linked. Everything we do with the modern compound bow is to make the shot rely as little on the archer and as much on the bow as possible... which would make it very easy for everything to fall apart if something is misaligned. If you're just relying on yourself and you're used to relying on yourself, it's a lot easier to compensate than when you've not trained yourself how to. When everything is working properly with the compound bow you'll have great accuracy, but when things get misaligned you have to spend a significant amount of time retuning the equipment.

And I am somewhat doubtful that an archer would not know how his next shot would behave. That seems unlikely to me. While it is true that back then they didn't have the same kind of quality control that we did I am not so sure that some small imperfections in the crafting of the bow would have such a drastic effect on its accuracy. A bow made by some random peasant who's never made a bow before, sure, I'll agree it's probably not going to come out very well. But a bow made by someone who knows what they're doing, that's a bit different of a story. Besides, having used the bow for hours and hours of practice you would learn if your bow maybe shoots a bit to the left, or a bit high, etc. You would learn how to compensate for any small degree of imperfection. Or you would use the bow for firewood if it just can't shoot straight. Although really, I don't think there's a whole lot that can go terribly wrong in the making of the bow itself... it would seem to me that their biggest problem hundreds of years ago would be in the bowstring.


I agree with you to a point here. There's just no way that they could have enough competent fletchers making enough high quality arrows designed specifically for each different bow every man in an army is using personally and supply them for any reasonable period of time. Chances are they mass produced arrows to a specific length, and if you wanted perfectly made arrows for you and your bow you'd have to make them yourself. I'm not sure the arrows wouldn't survive though, if you're testing on a hay bale for example, it's unlikely to damage the arrow itself though I wouldn't be too surprised if the fletchings were damaged.


I still think you overestimate just how hard it is to fire a bow properly ;). The difference between a perfect shot and a middling-good shot (which is most of what you should be getting in battlefield conditions at moderate range, I think), is with the perfect shot you hit the guy in the middle of the torso. With the middling shot you might hit him in the arm, stomach, or maybe a leg. With a very poor shot, you'll go over his head, hit the ground in front of him, or the arrow will fly off to a side... and two of those shots still have a chance to hit someone else. Plus if you're shooting into a packed mass of soldiers like at agincourt it would be hard to miss completely and not hit anyone at all. And at least while you're not being shot at and people aren't close enough to stab you, it should not be too hard to fire properly. Taking the example of the bike in a battlefield... are you going to forget how to ride? Maybe you'll exaggerate some of the motions. Maybe with all the adrenaline you'll fall off trying to ride away while someone's shooting in your general direction. But then you'll get back on the bike and keep on peddling. I will freely admit there's more chance of human error with a bow, and less ease of profile minimalization. Those are unfortunate drawbacks to the weapon.

Depends where, probably not but depends on how sick, probably because you train to pull the bow back to the same spot every time, and if you were too scared to do that you'd probably be running for dear life :). Let's reverse that, crossbows have a higher draw weight per bow strength than an ordinary bow has, and required mechanical means to draw them. Could a crossbowman draw his crossbow when sick, wounded, or scared out of his mind? I would guess the answers are pretty similar to mine for the longbow actually, though I admit to never having fired a crossbow, particularly a medieval crossbow.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

This is an assumption I just plain disagree with. It is patronising at the very least to assume that because medieval craftsmen lacked modern technology they couldn't work wood to a high standard.


Again I dipute this blanket assumption that medieval skills couldn't make an arrow tht would fly true.

I will agree, though, that goods mass produced for the military were likely to be substandard. As noted elsewhere, though, it may well be the case that battlefield longbow use was more about hitting an area reliably than about precision targetting of individuals. In which case the point is more or less moot.

I believe that's down to training, in much the same way as modern armies do it. Since military training was being done pretty darn well by the 1st century BC, I don't think this argument holds very much water.


I have to agree. I haven't done much archery, but this agrees with what I have done. Besides, if you don't pull as hard on the bow then the arrow won't have as much kinetic energy behind it and won't be very effective.

Ooh, sounds a bit like an assembly line. You know, one of those manufacturing techniques that reduces cost due to increased efficiency? (not that crossbows wouldn't still be expensive, of course)
Please note: the guy you're quoting specified that the costs he mentioned weren't financial but the availability of trained men and speed of bow manufacture.


I do see one big advantage to feudal lords for the crossbow - most peasants aren't going to own them because of the price. Not having a workforce who can shoot you if they don't like your taxes is a Good Thing.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

heh you ask me we have lost plenty of knowledge from past ages in all aspects of art, construction and science and skill and craftsmanship has gone down.

Mass production has seen to that. Scientific undertanding of a subject does not = practical ability. And there are plenty of things that we cannot match the quality of today. from violins to swords to construction techniques. Architecture is probably the most striking example though.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Well, you didn't imagine the part about the agarthans. The rest of it is dubious.

Dude. I made a fully functional crossbow, that would penetrate 2" of wood in 5th grade.

The "bow" part of the weapon is called a stock. And no, you don't need any particular bowyer skill.

I think you have *no* general idea of the level of complexity that societies of the time were capable of generating. For example, looms of the times had up to ***10,000*** moving parts.
To think that societies couldn't crank out crossbows with 10-24 parts cheaply is .. simply laughable.

The reason looms were successful is the same reason that crossbows were successful. Large amounts of standardized parts could be cranked out, and assembled, quickly and cheaply.

And yes, compared to knights, sappers, artillerymen, crossbowmen *were* cheap.

Crossbowmen had essentially no need to train. These troops were often raised in mere weeks, vs. the years required to gain excellence with the longbow. Because they had virtually no training - they were easier to raise, deployable from virtually any population. And when killed they were easily replaceable.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Considering the people of the medieval and ancient era managed to do stuff as complex as build Hagia Sophia, make Attic pottery and craft intricate jewellery, I think we can expect the average medieval bowyer to be able to make a pretty reliable bow. I suspect a trained archer could also adapt to a new bow of the same basic design pretty quickly.

I saw some program where a modern guy did horse archery and could fairly reliably hit a conventional archery target at 30 yards or so whilst the horse was moving. Also, if you consider an archer has to hit a block of infantry/cavalry however much wide and maybe 4-10 ranks deep, he's got a fair bit of room for inaccuracy.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

And then imagine that the ancient horse archer were born on horseback with a bow as their first toy, and I say would say accuracy would not be a problem. :)

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

The English longbow did not need the years of training in order to get the archers to hit the target. It needed that to build up the muscles to pull a 120lbs+ longbow - resulting in bone deformities found on medieval skeletons.
And you needed that strength to punch through any armor.

As comparison, modern bows are much lighter. Entry-level adult bows are usually around 40 lbs (pound force, 4.54N), the ones used by the average hobbyists are 60-80, be they of whatever type. 40-60lbs bows in the medieval were used by the womenfolk of castles - for hunting and last-ditch defense. And much less effective in combat - shorter range and penetrating power. I was shooting a 40lbs bow and it had hard time penetrate 1" pine from 20 yards or so, FWIW.

OTOH. Get a crossbow and an average medieval youth, with strong muscles from physical work. Longbows have to be pulled by upper body, while crossbows are pulled by (stronger) leg muscles or windlass. You get the range and penetrating power (as in 80lbs+) you need without too much of training and could trump the range and power of any long bow with a crossbow strong enough. Granted, you need the resources to field 3 crossbowmen for each longbowmen for the same ROF - but they would need about the same amount of ammunition for comparable effect.

Of course, if your king orders archery to be a national pastime for every commoner, and your society is suitable for it - e.g. a peasantry not oppressed as much as the serfs in continental Europe thus less likely to revolt - an island nation should go for longbow.

Just my two cents.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Again personal skill cannot overcome mechanical disadvantages because an archer does not control his arrow in mid flight. There is only so much he can do. And relying on mechanical aid is a good thing. A human being is more likely to be inconsistent than a misaligned machine because at least a misaligned machine is much more likely to be inconsistent the same way.


Is a soldier going to be able to keep the same bow he has on the field and "forever?" Is the soldier going sure of the quality of the arrows? Even if the soldier had the same bow and we were assured it's quality was constant so he could "get use to it" he couldn't be sure of the quality of his arrows and if you admit variances within the bow then you know that the arrows themselves cannot be truly right for it. To truly know how your bow "behaves" you have to assume that arrows were a constant quality which you yourself admit that would be problematic in the paragraph after this one.


And wouldn't you say a bike relies a lot on "mechanical aid?" Such that the level of inputs you put in to get a bike to work is much less than one you need to get a bow to "work." I think you are underestimating the raw fear that a battlefield instills in somebody. A musket is considered an easy to use weapon but there are plenty of instances where weapons have been found with multiple loads in them due to panic.

Also you assume that a missed arrow that still hits somebody is the same quality of one that hits an intended target directly. The very nature of how an arrow leaves the bow has a great effect on its character. I think your assumption that the arrow wouldn't vary that much is too optimistic and the implication that an "off" arrow is just as good as a direct arrow is too ambitious as well. The rush and panic to pump out arrows is likely to mean that the archers aren't pulling as far as they need to leading to significant veering and falling short.

Being sick and sapped for strength would make the elbow grease required to load a crossbow problematic yes, but crossbows have periods of rest (when it's loaded) to help compensate. Since the range of motion required is not as involved you are more likely to be able to load it compared to drawing and shooting a bow and since you cannot screw up form since the string must be pulled to the nut (same spot) unlike a longbow which relies on the archer. The less things a human can screw up the better.

High standard compared to what? How could a medieval craftsmen compete with new materials made with computer modeling? How is that notion patronizing? And again the major issue here is consistency. Even if they were high standard were they all the same kind of standard? The arrow and the bow are simply too dependent upon one another. And even if you could achieve perfection you notice the bending of the arrow along it's node points prevent a truly exact hit because of it's inherent buckling and the flopping of the head of the arrow makes it much less likely for a truly direct contact.

Your assertion only works if getting it into that area is a given and it simply isn't. And a cohesive volley is more effective and you don't get that without "precision."

The problem with this statement is that more modern armies with "slow easy to use weapons," the imperialistic powers with their guns tore indigenous populations using the old school a new one. Your argument would only hold water if the quality of these old school armies like India with it's longbows would be smacking around those powers using that old timey shooty magic. I don't see what your saying holding water unless a delorean full of Uzis is involved.

Well he says otherwise in a later post LOL. But anyway an assembly line cannot be compared to individual dedicated craftsmen. Regular bows were easier to pump out I mean a lot of these composite crossbows used whale bone. Do you think it's easier to get a whale, kill it, remove it's whaley meats, get the bone, and craft the bone than to chop down a tree? Plus crossbows needed wood for that composite (yew) so you had to chop down tree too. I'm telling you no way in heck can crossbows be cheaper.

Unruly peasants were always a problem however, longbowmen were not true peasants but belonged to a class called Franklins. The whole longbowmen was a mere peasant thing fighting snooty nobles for FREEEEEDOOOOM is somewhat of a historical revisionism with a political axe to grind. The majority of true peasants were still quite screwed.

Huh? Err you honestly don't think a sky scraper or a space station is more impressive and requires more practical ability than what they had in the middle ages? Scientific understanding is what refines and takes "practical ability" to new heights. And they can make carbon nanotube blades now I believe. If you had modern day sword guy vs. medieval sword guy assuming equal skill medieval sword guy would lose...badly. Even without the modern stuff the mere superior health of the modern guy would be enough. It is silly to think that some guy in medieval times can crank out a better bow than one produced with all the materials technology, computers, and techniques of today. Medieval craftsmen were not Mentats.

Radical? Cowabunga? What is this suppose to tell me again?

No. The "bow" part as in the limbs were the magic shooty elves live is the prod or lath. The stock is called the tiller. You need bowyer skill as well as other folks. Also chicks dig guys with skills.

Looms come in many varieties like simple hand looms. You're making it sound like the 10,000 part uber loom is the norm for these peoples like a washing machine for the average peasant. Not to mention a loom is constantly producing a good recuperating its cost. A crossbow comes from a series of parts produced by dedicated craftsmen who want to be PAID and who need materials who are collected by people who also need to be paid and has to be made over and over again. And if you are judging parts as cost well how many "parts" does a regular bow have?

Doesn't work like that in those days. You cannot compare dedicated medieval craftsmen to modern day assembly.

A knight of "gentle birth" is going to need money yes obviously but a sapper? And artilleryman as an "engineer" type or generic mook to carry and help assemble? LOL no. Crossbowmen were not cheap. Their wages were high and the weapon themselves ensure that.

GWAHAHAHAHA! Easier to use does not mean "easy for everybody." This is not reflected in their wages as they made on average three times as much as "normal soldier" and being "number one crossbowman" was like being a minor noble in several countries. You fall under the fallacy that being easier to acclimate to a weapon implies that mastery is not possible or desirable. A modern day soldier's weapon is easier then either a longbow or crossbow. They still need to train and maintain their skills and yes there is difference between a Marine and some hobo you gave a gun to and dumped on a battlefield.


@Agema and P3D
Already addressed above and before as well.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Every post, and this does look more and more like a personal agenda - and a very emotionally biased one, at that. On that note, I do not choose a side in this argument, I believe that both tools of war have valid applications, and that one may excel where the other fails - thus my amusement with this entire argument. But still, I want to dance with you, Joe. :p



You are gleefully missing the point. He said that working with less sophisticated equipment creates a better operator. The point boiled down to this - take a modern compound bow, and remove the sights and other "archer aids". Odds are, that the classically trained longbowman will operate that bow at a level superior to a modern archery student, who has only ever fired a bow with all of the modern accessories.


Again, the theory behind the use of archers seemed to be "sheer # of pointy sticks flying through the air". Perhaps hastily crafted arrows are not suitable for target archery, or even for hunting. But they are just fine for firing at thousands of screaming soldiers. Most of them. You shrug off the bad arrows, because you have highly trained your archers to fire quickly and tirelessly, to saturate your field with projectiles.


Oddly, you are also making an -assumption- here, that disagrees very widely with historical accounts, that only precisely and purposefully fired arrows are lethal. Most bow volleys were not fired at short range, and thus were not fired directly. They are lobbed in the general direction of a foe, with the assumption that enough of them will find meat, to justify the expense.


I don't know, come back to me when modern craftsmen can replicate the functional perfection of say, a Stradivarius, or the Great Pyramid. There are truly countless examples of physical feats that our predecessors performed at levels of proficiency that are as yet unmatched in modern day.


I believe the entire argument up to now, has been the temporal ease with which the English were able to raise large numbers of longbowmen. The point being that perhaps 1000 crossbowmen in many cases are superior to 1000 longbowmen, but 2000 longbowmen with slightly inferior ability, and slightly inferior arrows, will create a level of saturation that will -possibly- achieve the desired effect more readily. There are 2 VERY important points about this. The first is that the historical accounts are that this period was one of great success for England, so we know that the Welsh longbow must be good for something. But also, we know that there is no true way to compare the performance of the available alternatives, because we're hundreds of years past the fact. So you are arguing theory (your heartfelt beliefs in the ability of the crossbow) versus the reality of the longbow's success.


Many animal parts were used for composite bows (cross or traditional), but composite crossbows were not used exclusively, nor was whale bone the industry standard. Seems that ox and other more commonly seen animals yielded most of the materials.


I do not think that anyone argued that we can do things that more primitive men could not. The point is, they also could do things that WE cannot. Pride in our accomplishments will not bring back the depth and capability of pre-modern craftsmen.



Nunchuck skills?


Where do you get your figures on expected medieval salaries? This is a pretty bold claim, and I think deserves a source.


Well it's a good thing that no one ever celebrated and revered master archers, or you might not have a point at all here.

<3

I have yet to see a weapon fire magic bullets, and I would agree that the longbow certainly does not do so. And neither does the crossbow.

I think your rigid thinking holds you back from the true reality of warfare (especially medieval warfare), that there is no right answer - there is only what works.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

As I recall the History Channel had a show on the Battle of Crecy(hitler was not involved strangely enough). They performed tests which concluded that the English longbowmen's arrows couldn't actually penetrate French armor. They then brought in a crowd control expert who studied the landscape of the battle and thought it would represent a serious crowd control problem. They were fighting in a valley and all of the French knights were going after the same few British nobles. The History Channel then looked at how the saturated ground affected troop movement. The effect of the mud was so bad that it required something like 30lbs of force for a fully armored French knight to pull his boot out of the mud. The much lighter armored English longbowmen did not have this problem. They concluded that the French had serious crowd control issues that caused them to bunch and fall over. Unfortunately for the French, due to the suction generated by the mud+heavy smooth armor contact, the French knights became exhausted and stuck in the mud. At this point the English longbowmen just walked around and slit all of the noble's throats as they received nothing for a ransom. Its been a while since I've seen that episode so I probably have a few "facts" wrong. The History Channel has seemed to have moved on to end of the world garbage :(

On another note, the Pope outlawed crossbows for some time because they were so devastating. I think its very clear where I stand in the crossbow vs. longbow debate.

Edit: wow this post is 15 pages long. I thought it was 3 pages...

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

If your memory is correct it seems that TV show ignored the presence of horses entirely. Even if longbow arrows couldn't penetrate french armour (which I believe they could) they could still take down the horses, causing a huge amount of damage. Coming off a horse abruptly in full armour while other fellows on huge horses in full armour are charging around and doing the same, that can't be a lot of fun.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Bingo!

<3 JM


For the record, I'm on neither side of the debate. I was actually arguing a completely seperate point :)

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I don't want to enter any Crossbows vs. Longbows, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Vampires vs. Werewolves or similar discussions, but I actually have to tell a little story about this. There's this local guy that has used applied mathematics, FEM and stuff like that, to make stringed instruments. His work wasn't really popular, though, so he invested a couple of kilos and bought a Stradivarius. Then he submitted the Stradivarius as his own work, and (I think seperately) his own work as Stradivarius a couple of times. The supposed Stradivarius was always held in high favors and the perfect sound was emphasized, while the supposed own work performed not so good against "real" Stradivarius and similar great names. It shows that names are more important than quality even in this business. Since this little stunt, he now is really popular and makes good money by producing more strings, of which he can only make a few per year, AFAIK he's pretty overbooked now and he's in the newspapers here from time to time.

As for the Pyramids, I don't know, what function did they have besides being an impressive looking amount of rocks that formed a gigantic tomb? There's enough similar megalomaniacal projects around the world all time.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Yeah I'm definitely not convinced we /can't/ reproduce great works of the past, it's just that we /don't/. We produce great works appropriate to our time, like supercomputers, skyscrapers and power stations. Can we make something just like the pyramids? Of course we can. But we won't, because who would ever put all the effort and manpower in? Culturual and societal pressures are entirely different.

That said we could easily make a modern versions of the pyramids by stacking machine made concrete cubes on each other. It wouldn't be impressive like th pyramids are though, because the process involved wouldn't be impressive.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I want to build a pyramid in my garden to preserve me for the afterlife. I would certainly not want to look bad when attending to afterlife parties. Also, with a pyramid, my fans would have a natural place of worship.
Oh, and the pyramid could also function as a place to stash my body while I'm being called back from the place of fairies and fancy dress parties.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Well I didn't mean that the Pyramids themselves are functional, I was referring to functionality of the masonry involved, and the engineering required.

Just to clarify one thing - we still do not *know* how on Earth those pyramids got completed. The theories are getting better, but it's truly astounding how large the stones are, even near the top - we would have tremendous problems placing those stones today without a helicopter.

But back to the masonry, the Pyramids, like many ancient masterworks of stone, never had and never needed mortar, or anything to bind the stones together. They are fashioned at a level comparable to the finest machine cut stone (bear in mind, I am really comparing them to modern human stonecutters), despite the fact that they are not regular and standardized in size and shape.

Even more astounding to me, are the "viewing" portals placed strategically about the structures. These are angled tunnels, of less than 1' square, leading out from key chambers to coincide with astronomical events. There are thousands of feet of these tunnels, and the ones that I have seen (they've sent at least a couple of RC cameras up them) are perfectly smooth - impeccably crafted into hundreds of stones which whose placement and assembly is simply incredible.


We don't have stonemasons today that can even approach this level of craftsmanship on any scale even remotely approaching the construction of such an immense structure. If Khufu had ordered the Pyramid built on the day of his birth (no mean feat!) it is estimated that 250 tons of stone would have to be installed every day for his entire 60+ years of life, if they had expected it to be complete in time for his death.

Also, a cited quote from Wikipedia- "The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have a mean error of only 58 millimeter in length, and 1 minute in angle from a perfect square. The base is horizontal and flat to within 15 mm. The sides of the square are closely aligned to the four cardinal compass points (within 3 minutes of arc based on true north not magnetic north)."


Show me someone today who can perform this feat with only 5000 year old technology, and I will surely give you a cookie, sir.

Oh and did you know, that the longbow was just used to humiliate the French at Crecy, while the Welsh waited for them to exhaust themselves, so they could slit their throats? That account of the battle seems a bit fanciful, but I can get behind it. The longbow even wins fights where it kills no one. :o

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Interesting side note.

Common knowledge (hence often wrong) - looking at the number of bullets produced in WWII, and the number of causalties inflicted, dividing the former by the latter.. arrives at the figure of 10,000 bullets per casualty.

Which, to my mind gives hope - we really don't *like* to kill people. But the point in this context is filling the skies with sharp pointy things seems as valid today as it was hundreds of years ago.

Second point: I have upon occassion gotten to metal detect for civil war bullets et.al
I have found far more instances of unfired shells than fired ones.

Point? Beats me? Perhaps the fired ones disintegrated or were carried off in bodies. Or perhaps, under the pressure of firing they dropped a lot more slugs than they fired. Just interesting.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I don't want to draw the attention away here, just a harmless retort...
I'll concur with Sombre here. It isn't that we can't, it's that nobody really bothers. People back then weren't Neanderthals, they just had different tools. Actually, I'd say give a Neanderthal the same tools and education as we have now and he should fit in without much trouble. And there are amazing feats done by people all over the centuries. There are people that do build things like they were back then and then use them to prove a point, like crossing the Atlantic with a boat made of reed.

Only one, hardly. A whole empire of loyal people under my command with some genius here or there in the ranks and an abundance of slaves, plus enough material to use up or trade away that it doesn't matter if all else is just wasteland afterwards, I guess I could show you something. What they had was hi-tech for their times, and they certainly were very organized.

How do you think will it look like in 5000 years? I don't know what it will be, but there will be something that people wonder about how we did it. That we actually managed to have space travel with this crude and dangerous technology, just shooting big barrels filled with hydrogen into the sky? And thus bringing humanity MTV, great-great-great-great grandfather of ALLNET or whatever.