Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Wrong guy :]

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Sorry for contributing to the thread necromancy, but I have to disagree; it does take a lifetime of practice to develop the muscles to draw a heavy bow. I've been doing archery for 3 years. I'm 5'7'' (possibly tall compared to the English of the day) and my draw weight is 38 lbs. A measly 38 lbs. I could not imagine how many hours a day I would have to practice to get up to even 50 lbs. Anecdotal evidence perhaps, but you can't just say using longbows is some easy thing.

More likely the reason archers weren't paid as much is because ranged fighting wasn't as "honorable" a pursuit as hand to hand combat. Despite its effectiveness it was simply looked down upon as an inferior practice and would not command a respectable rate of pay.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Read about five pages of this and had to go, wanted to post:

Agincourt, AFAIK, was partly won due to a simple difference in philosophy. The French thought that they were fighting a chivalric war and could expect to be captured and ransomed back if defeated, while the English were well and truly in enemy territory and took to murdering the surrendered French knights with daggers and sledgehammers. It's like if one side of a football game all came to the field with brass knuckles and knives and there were no refs to call foul on it... you'd expect that team to do quite well until the other side caught on. This is a problem you won't have in Dominions - there's no honorable surrender.

Furthermore, AFAIK the French didn't even bother deploying their crossbowmen at Agincourt. Certainly, they might have fared better if they had.

Finally, I believe the longbow was never outlawed for use against other Christians by the Vatican, which tells you that the crossbow was doing something right.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Please, stop now. Or we'll summon the ghost of MachineGunJoe back.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Bump

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I am certain that the ancient crossbow was inferior, I've even seen such on crossbow websites. It was because they didn't have materials that flexed enough to make the bows out of. Modern x-bows flex like crazy. I'm surprised that was an archer earlier saying that thought a long bow was more powerful than crossbow. I assume that includes modern crossbows, which seem to be very sophisticated. But, yes, inferior to a compound bow, I can honestly believe.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I like to call modern crossbows 'guns'. They are extremely powerful - able to punch through solid wafer at extreme range. There are records of 'guns' so powerful that they can actually fire through more than one wafer, though I assume these are specialised cases.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Wafers? I eat those for breakfast. Rowr!

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Clearly you're some kind of wafer fanboi.

I always check the forums of a game before buying to make sure it isn't being ruined by wafer fanbois. Stop trying to ruin the game!

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

the fact that the longbow was not banned like the crossbow has nothing to do with the longbow being inferior to the crossbow... the crossbow was banned because it was used against honorable knights and pierced through their armor. that's what crossbows do best, pierce thick armor at short range. longbows on the other hand had a much greater range and were not really aimed at piercing thick knight armor, nor firing at knights from short range. the longbow gave you a huge tactical advantage, and changed the way you deployed your forces if you had longbows in your army. while the crossbows just gave you more firepower via mass, and it was effective against knight's armor.

honestly, comparing longbows and crossbows is almost like comparing apples to oranges, they're 2 very different weapons with different goals(in reality, not so much in dominions...).

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

The way I understand it, it is very simple. You want more arrows in the air, but most peasants couldn't he anything with a longbow and they might even have trouble pulling it back. But, with crossbows anyone can kind of aim, and you can really pack them together. You don't need to pay them much at all.

As in:
"No longbows? We'll just get 3-4x the number in x-bows then..."

It is very similar to one of the Chinese, I think, general or mathmaticians that showed that obtaining victory and the scale of that victory is propotional (and related to) how many arrows you fire. So, rather than using a simple to aim crossbow, they went with repeating crossbows that are near impossible to aim, but that fire very quickly. He appears to have been quite right. (I believe I heard of this on PBS, not the History Channel).

As far as banning them, the reality is that the x-bow could be used by brigands like a saturday night special to kill laws enforcement. It took no skill... So, argue, I suppose about the benefits of gun control, but if there weren't that many, stopping production might have been just the thing to do.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

If you outlaw crossbows, only outlaws will have crossbows!

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

If I understand the position of more reasonable gun control people, they look at supply side problems, especially disasters like the cold war dumping of guns across the world like we were salting fries.

So, they want to restrict some sort of access to firearms, especially in places were no everyone has a gun.

You have to think carefully about this, because when the Church banned them, they almost assuredly had a good reason (they've been teaching philosophy for a very long time). If there weren't a lot of crossbows then banning them would be a good decision.

I don't have a price comparison of a crossbow and a bow or longbow at the time.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

sun tzu said that casualties are the square of the effective ratios of troops. And roughly he was correct.

So for example if you outnumber your enemy 3:2, your casualties will be of the ratio 4:9.

These rules of war were later expanded on by Liddell Hart; generally an interesting and controversial guy.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I promised rdonj and Lingchih I wouldn't propagate this thread. I lied.

Anyone who disagrees with me is a numbnuts and a tit. So there!!! Cause I'm right and you are wrong.

Now that's a classic internet forum argument. I'm great and you suck.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

What you're really supposed to do is assume we are all your enemies, and then twist our words, while simultaneously being extremely critical of any errors, ussually precieved errors, or ambibuities, and magnify them into us being idiots, often, wether we agree with you or not.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I've given this more consideration. Sadly that was a waste of my time because it appears that most of you didn't understand a thing I said. Who gives a rat's behind whether a crossbow was banned by the church. It's not like people didn't do many things banned by the church. For example, the fornication of boys by priests is no allowed by the church but that sure didn't stop it.

The simple engineering is that a longbow has very GOOD penetration of armour. And a horking big crossbow also has very good penetrations.

However, a longbow can be fired as fast as it can be drawn. A high pull crossbow takes longer. Anyone can do the math.

And eat my shorts. I'm right and you are wrong. Since I'm always right.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

And... crossbows were used by William Tell, who was Swiss. And Switzerland has a border with Austria, where Hitler was born. Therefore crossbows are tainted with Hitler-ness, and evil.


And Godwin is satisfied, and we can all go home.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Oh I love that logic Gregstrom. Fine stuff.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

if you're talking about a standard battle than you'll probably be right. however in battles such as Agincourt for examples, the Longbow really shined. the thing about the Longbow is that it has tremendous range(even more than the early muskets) it also has very good accuracy due to the sheer amount of training required to become a Longbow archer. now, in Agincourt for example the British exploited their range advantage to its fullest, firing at the French from very far away, and digging up into defensive positions with poles sticking from the ground to protect said Longbow archers from the Frankish Knight's charge.

as for the Chinese, in China the situation was a bit different as in Europe. China was the only "civilized" military at its area, the rest were tribesmen or "barbarians" as the Greeks would call them. said tribesmen were superb horsemen, and were very capable of using bows as well, but only had access to simple weaponry, at least until the secrets of gunpowder were leaked to them via China... thus the Chinese repeating Crossbow was the perfect weapon to break the technological stalemate between China and its tribal enemies, who eventually used everything the Chinese used. also without access to long range weapons(say Longbows) and plentiful cavalry and horse archers, the repeating Crossbow's lack of range was not as crucial, thus its superb firing rate gave it a huge advantage.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

The Catholic Church was essentially half the law back in the day, all across europe, so, if they wrote a law about this or that, considering what it was written for is like wondering why France wrote a particular law, except for its far reacing influence, which makes the consideration more important. Most 'general' legal systems are strongly influenced by working with and against the Catholic Church over the past 2000 years.

It was tough for Joe Blow to kill a professional officer of the state with a long bow, but not so much with a crossbow. I think this exact fact is the one that gives the crossbow the less than accurate depiction of the x-bow as extra powerful... When clearly the long bow was similar but larger and flex more, so it was almost assuredly more powerful (today, we might be able to find a fancy high speed energy release material).

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Slings actually did out range bows, and had a comparable rate of fire. As for armor, plate was really effective against either of them, and mail and lighter were less effective against slings, due to the layers of padding; the only reason Agincourt went down as it did was because the french cavalry were trying to ride over thick mud, and horses don't get along well with thick mud. Then the horses started dying, and the people had to walk through thick mud while getting pelted, and by the time they actually reached the archers they had taken a bunch of minor bruises through the armor, fallen off a horse, and acquired a bunch of mud. Against troops that were basically fresh. And this is assuming that they didn't fall down in the mud and have lousy vision and excess weight at this point as well.

However, Bows have an obvious advantage. They are much easier to aim, and if you need to do anything fancier than put a stone in a general direction with a snapping sound (which will direct animals, and scare others off), you are going to be spending a long time practicing. Where the bow is an aim then shoot weapon, the sling is an aim while shooting weapon. Making arrows, particularly fletching, is not as demanding as previous posts state, and they could be cranked out, although not anywhere near the level one could do that with a sling or gun bullet. The difference in training needed to get accuracy is immense.

Furthermore, a slinger requires more space than an archer to operate a weapon. While it out ranges the bow, the ranks will naturally stretch further back quickly (tripled or so), and the effective range of the weapon isn't good enough to mitigate that, as the difference in range isn't very pronounced until you get to people who are very good in both weapons, as the slings range is highly determined by skill level, and the skill level needed for the maximum range is absurd at a troop training level. Meaning that, in a mass troop situation, the slings effective range is nullified, and it is a simple matter of weapon and ammunition cost against training time.

Which brings me to my next point. Longbows are hard to acquire, so ex soldiers and such couldn't get a hold of them easily, and be a threat. Manufacturing is enough of a process to make it difficult to get high powered bows as well. By contrast, the sling is easy to manufacture, either the two strings and a pouch design, or various woven designs. Leather and wool are not hard to acquire, and you really don't want recruits who are not full time soldiers (which they wouldn't have been in the medieval era) having a weapon like that.

Inaccurate. Or rather, inaccurate some of the time. A 45 degree angle with have the longest horizontal distance, although that is obviously modified by wind. If you lift it past that, or not quite to that then range decreases, but going from 0 degrees up to 45 is constant increase.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Bows and Crossbows are being addressed here, to keep posts reasonable. Also, I can't seem to find the edit button.

Crossbows were more powerful and could pierce armor better than bows, and were more expensive. There were immensely complicated machines, and crossbows weren't among them, but at this point standardized parts didn't exist, so each crossbow had to be built by hand, which made them more expensive than bows. And just like bows, they arc. Meaning that as a sniper weapon, or when one actually needs to go through armor, or, given less training, you just need to shoot one guy and take him out, this is probably the better weapon. For mass battles these were less efficient, although a crossbow volley from close range would be devastating, so a few ranks of crossbowmen up front who made sure to fire in concert (and in a line, since that makes armor piercing that much easier, as everything talked about but the sling bullet loses way too much power to puncture armor effectively if arced significantly) would make the front ranks that much nastier. This just means that you don't have the melee types, or the melee types have the crossbows, and assumes a high archer battlefield, which stops being effective against cavalry on a sunny day without mud unless you have something like a river with a bridge, and troops that can hold the bridge. Pike contingents aren't bad here, but a spear and shield formation similar to the phalanx would be effective as well.

Bows had a higher rate of fire, which made up for quite a lot. Now, to address one particular point that had been made. Arrows would flex significantly when fired, but they would then straighten out and fly straight. The flexing didn't impact accuracy, and was not a problem. Similarly, on bows having one point to draw to. This is accurate for the modern compound bow, and there are distances at which it is much easier to aim than others, but you have a decent variety of draw lengths with any ancient bow.

Now, arrows flexing needs to be looked at a little more, which brings up another relevant weapon. The atlatl. It threw darts that were basically long arrows, and they bent massively, but still straightened out and flew straight. The flexing of the darts was not an issue, and just like the arrows you need a very high speed camera to see this. Both weapons could be very accurate. Now, the bow out-ranges the atlatl significantly, but the atlatl has its place. A nice hunting weapon, always readied, and probably better than just a javelin, although it takes more training. Mictlan should have these, but sadly doesn't. In both cases, with these weapons, armor is a lot more effective than against crossbows, but the bow isn't bad for sheer volume, and the longbow is among the best, not the English bow specifically, but any high draw weight bow which wasn't made in a really shoddy fashion.

Staff slings were also omitted from the above post. They work completely differently from hand slings, and have a lower effective range, but are made for heavier projectiles. These are probably closer to a crossbow in armor effectiveness, as the projectiles had a lot of force. Unlike the sling though, you could not use a shield, although you wouldn't with a sling as it makes reloading difficult, and screws up many styles of aim.


All of this addresses massed formations. Things change rather dramatically without them, which means anywhere cavalry isn't effective. In a large, mountainous area slings are suddenly very efficient, crossbows are upped because you can shoot down a ledge without retaliation and deal with a less significant problem from armor, and the atlatl remains a big game weapon.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Alas, this thread was started quite some time ago. Endoperez hasn't posted in several months, and aezeal even longer. They may never read your post :P

As for the edit button, this forum only lets you edit posts for a maximum of 30 minutes after posting them. Except for the first post of a thread, which can be edited forever.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I've never had a problem with necroing thread that are like this one. If someone want to discuss this type of thing, this can just as easily be the clearinghouse of information.

I am not a bow expert, but it is not difficult, for me at least, to understand penetration as a mixture between projectile mass and velocity and strike area, which yields power delivered per unit area. If I understand basic bowcraft, you get more overall stopping power from a large (higher grain) arrow than a small arrow, but less accurracy. This means that loading the projectile with energy is a function of some kind, and not just a gross number as in you get such and such joules or watt/hours or whatever, per pull (also, the last inches of pull seem to load more, so longer arrows seem to have more power).

So, most bows of whatever type should have fine penetration.

There was not a great deal of variety in materials for bows in medieval times, and crossbows were generally not 5 feet wide, as a long bow might be tall. From what I have seen, long bows also flexed quite a bit more. This would generally seem to favor the long bow for loading capacity over the crossbow, even if it take more weight to pull back the string. Modern crossbows, though still often narrow, flex like crazy, to a point I've never seen anyone do with a bow. Compound bows still seem superior however. Though it's likely there is a comparative crossbow variety as well. Most compound bows are composite of some sort and so are crossbows, but compound bows seem to be more wood like, whereas crossbows seem to be more like metal springs. I haven't a clue which is necessarily more powerful, becaue the compound bow is generally much larger, and crossbow remains nocked. Thus, there is not much of a clue from user interface. My assumption is that at the high end of penetration in the modern world are sophisticated compound crossbows that are quite large and are pulled back with a mechanical device. This seems like the most reason and sane way a person could load a projectile with as much force as can be reasonably accomplished.

But what about slings? I looked around at sling information, and it seems that slings remained effective for a very long time. Even now they have their harrasment value with certain irregulars. They use a blunt object, so the object needs to be very heavy or very dense. Indeed, when there was metal armor, the slings used lead shot, which was quite deadly, on the Romans.

However, the ranks of slingers dwindled, and this is likely to be due to skill and culture limitations. I've never used a sling, but they aren't and obvious as a bow, and certainly no were near as obvious as a crossbow.

In ancient Israel, they have found a lot of sling stones, some quite large (fist size!). There is some evidence that the Ancient people of the region used slings to achieve great results (also explaining why other nations came up against them with calvalry and chariots). One -could- assume that sling use was a sort of national pass time in the region. This would explain the various size and sling projectiles as well, and the skill involved. Contemporary persons skilled with the sling are quite effective and accurate. I would concede that such a situation could easily be like that with English Longbowmen, only, it seems, on a grander scale, as all the peasantry use the sling. I can picture granny giving the little ones their first sling lesson, because the men are to busy seeing who can sling the 3 pound monster stone the farthest.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

When debating bows, x-bows, and/or slings, be sure to keep in mind the effectiveness of the Cretan archers. With their pyromancers in tow to cast Flaming Arrows, their composite bows could slay Carthaginians or Cyclopses with equal ease! No wonder the Romans used Cretan mercenaries in great numbers when they conquered Marverni and C'tis.

Yeah, sure, the Balearic Island slingers had their day against unarmored Spanish barbarians unsupported by wyverns, but when used as mercs in the east against the Seleucids and their flying elephants (courtesy of Seleucid Oreiads of course), well, they didn't do so hot there, did they?

And you know, all that's a historical fact, cause I read all about it in the Lives of the Pantakrators, by Plutarch, the famous necromancer.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

This is not really the case in modern archery. The characteristics of the bow determines what kind of arrow you can fire. If you try to shoot an arrow too heavy or too light for your bow, it will not fly straight. Frequently when your arrows are fishtailing (left/right) or porpoising (up/down) it's because the arrow is the wrong weight for the bow.

Technically you are correct though. If you fire an arrow too heavy for your bow, it may increase its stopping power and will definitely decrease its accuracy. But that's probably not what you meant.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I actually got that from an archery magazine. If I understand correctly, assuming you are correct, and I bet you are, and I'll add that I didn't say different, that a certain bow can handles several kinds and legnths of arrows with a variety of heads. Typically only refered to as length and weight in grains. I think the variation in lengths a bow can handle doesn't vary -that- much, but you can certainly use heavier arrows to obtain more stopping power, but generally sacrifice accuracy and range.

I'm not an expert, but I have poked around reading things from people who are. So, I'm trying to understand how a few sources here actually agree. A bow might come with a reccomended arrow weight, but that isn't a number that can't be adjusted for circumstance and archer, if I understand correctly.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

On crossbows. A large part of the reason they were as powerful as they were while as small as they were was the materials involved. They don't bend back as far as a bow in most cases, and are nowhere near as wide. On the other hand, bows aren't made with significant amounts of metal, where the bow part of a crossbow frequently is. As for penetration, it is a combination of a lot of things. Weight, angle, bow power, weather, arrow shape, armor slope, etc, which applies to both bows and crossbows, and makes direct calculations pretty much impossible. Still leaves testing as an option.

On slings, fist sized stones are generally not used, although there are exceptions, and there is always that guy who is actually going to try a 3 pound stone. But generally you are looking at the 1-3 ounces weight (30-100 grams). As for stones, slings are used for sharp objects fairly often. Dart slings are commonplace, poisoned dart slings not commonplace enough. Then of course there is the Apache method, where the projectiles become sharp. Obsidian might be rounded now, but when it hits the rock right next to you the pieces flying at you aren't.

On bows and arrow weights. The weight and length of an arrow are fairly restricted on a per bow basis, although you can swap out heads pretty much as you want, as long as you avoid the kind of stuff that is too impractical for use anyways. It does impact flight, particularly if you try for flaming arrows (where you wrap something just behind the head then light it), but in general you are limited. A few points to the atlatl here, and a few days for me to avoid the word on.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

This is like an unending conversation about which crossbow or long bow is more powerful in general?

I've read that medieval crossbows were generally less powerful. So, what am I to make of all this conflicting information? What has likely happened is that musuem quality medieval crossbows are no doubt quite powerful and well made (and no doubt accurate). Given the relative complexities, however, and relative ages...

As far as slings go, I was trying to make the sling seem familiar within the context of ancient societes, were it was a very common weapon.

And as for arrow weight, I'm sure there is a nominal weight for the greatest accuracy and/or maximum range amd/or greatest power.

Edit: Now I just "went shopping" and read a x-bow manual. Use the heaviest arrow or bolt that your launcher can fire and you can fire accurately to take down your game as this is the most humane way of doing so. Using a LIGHTER arrow or bolt is considered dry firing. In some cases the x-bow or bow is not tested using a variety of arrows and using other arrows could void the warranty. Nonetheless, weight in grains on just one sight varied (for the same other specs.) from 6.6 grain/inch to 9.2 grain/inch. Which is a large difference. Enough that the manual reccomends always choosing the heaviest one you can shoot accurately at a reasonable range, so as to be humane. Thanks.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/crossbow.htm
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/longbow.htm

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval...oss_l_v_c.html

Particularly the piece at the end. It appears there was much development with regards to the crossbow during the medieval period.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Yes. Particularly in bow material. You had probably heard about metal bows - which only became widespread in 15-16th centuries. Earliest devices had mostly plain wooden bows. At Crusades' era they were mostly composite.
As for actual arrow weight - I wonder. From what I heard crossbow bolts were often considerably heavier. But this may be mostly the case with late models - those with metal bows. Thanks for the source anyway.
Considering slings I've already mentioned that even at Tamerlane's times their use continued and was quite effective. Of course, they were even harder to learn than bows...

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

You guys don't seem to get the physics.

The bow material is IRRELEVANT. If you make a bow of styrofoam and it requires a 150 lb draw at 12 inches draw pull at 24" bow width it's the same as a titanium bow with the same characteristics.

Because, fundamentally it's a human being drawing the bow. And a human being has a limited amount of reach and pull. So all things being equal, a human with 150 lbs of pull at 28 inches of draw will put MORE energy into an arrow or bolt with a longer total bow length. So if a human could draw a 12 foot long bow at 150 lbs and 28 inches it would have far more penetration than any 4 foot tall bow at the same draw and length.

Material is irrelevant. If we are talking about machine powered draw and unlimited time to draw then compounding by mechanical advantage comes into play.

Of course, if you want to debate this I'm most happy. Of course you realize I will win.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Oh yeah. This is basic conservation of energy. The input energy is a human being. The variation is not that large.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Crossbows use a mechanical advantage to pull back the string. Even the ancient crossbows seem to have higher kinetic energy, because of larger projectiles but has a slower projectile speed. So, theoretically, they could penetrate armor better.

I've learned a bit since this discussion started. The problem appears to be that both bows did what they were designed for well. Both pierced armor, and if the longbow didn't, they would just use different arrows. In the time period prior to 1500-1600 or so and maybe after that longbows outdistanced crossbows considerably... although, it appears that even this may have been largely due to crossbow users being essentially unskilled archers.

The lesson seems to be that you need several times as many similarly skilled crossbows to be as effective as longbows would be. Because crossbow archers were frequently unskilled, you would need many more, and even then you might have, at least, range problems.

And range problems in such situations are pretty severe and can have telling consequences.

And also, regarding the Catholic Church 'banning' the crossbow, it seems that many people think that was a law regarding dangerous shooting exhibitions. As I don't have a copy of the law (and couldn't probably read it if I did), I can't give an actual opinion as to the nature of its intention... So, I assume it was a common law designed to keep reasonable and decent order.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Styrofoam is very light. So a 150lb draw styrofoam bow would only actually be about 15lb. Clearly you did not understand anything at all we were talking about on IRC. I thought you engineering types studied physics in school. Not just beaver dams. Titanium on the other hand is really heavy, so a 150lb draw titantium bow would be about 400lbs actually.

What are you, some kind of troll? You are clearly racist against the Vaetti.

Gah! There you go again. You are totally ignoring the material used in the bow construction. How can you keep making this basic mistake, ignoring composites, and plastics, and steel bows, or, more importantly, plasteel Xbows? Don't you know 'X' stands for "extra"?

Sounds to me like you've been drinking! You're not gonna win anything that way, except maybe a beer belly.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Admin, please lock this thread. If I knew how to do so, I would do it myself. It has long outlived it's usefullness.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Trolls have every right to be racist against vaetti. Besides, I hear that vaetti make good eatin' (if you're a troll.)

...oh, and you could stick the little vaetti skull on the end of your Troll-size crossbow, and it would look real intimidating or something. If you hang a vaetti skull on your bow, it just kinda dangles there looking silly, plus it throws off your aim as it waves back and forth.

Therefore, Crossbows > Longbows, if you're a troll. On the other hand, Longbows > Crossbows, if you're a vaetti.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

actually Maerlande, the material is very relevant... not only does it affect the weight of the bow but also its elastic ability. the more elastic the material the less force the archer needs to use in order to pull the bow, or give you more pulling effect for the same energy. yes that would be limited by the archer's arms length too, which is why you need a balance between weight and elastic ability. oh and if you use metals or something that isn't elastic at all than a strong enough pull might just break the bow due to its lack of elastic ability...

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Incorrect: The energy input to the bow by the archer is exactly the work done in pulling the bow. It is the integral of force times distance. A variance in the pull force does affect this energy, therefore compound bows place more energy into an arrow by using mechanical pulleys to use high pull at the start of draw and much less pull at the end thus taking advantage of the fact that an archer is stronger at the beginning of the draw and then can hold a light pull longer for more accurate aim. However, the effect of a compound bow is irrelevant to the material. It is the result of the pulley system which is not medieval and irrelevant to this converstation. There are also medieval bows that to some extent make use of this feature. Recurve bows have a more linear force curve while longbows tend to be easy to start to draw while much harder to hold.

Strength to mass ratio of wood one the highest of all known materials used by man. Here is a chart showing the excellent specific strengths of materials. http://www-materials.eng.cam.ac.uk/m.../NS6Chart.htmlNote that top woods such as oak and pine rate better than most metals. And the metals in the higher specific strengths are strictly modern. Keep in mind that in the medieval period only bronze, brass, and mild steels were known. Whereas they had access to wonderful woods and tremendously effective materials such as sinew.

You are misusing the term elastic. Elastic means a material that returns to it's original length after the application of force. Metals are very elastic as long as you don't exceed the yield strength. But then so is wood. All materials have an elastic limit. You can break a rubber band to take an example of an extremely elastic material. Plastic materials deform under force. The best example is probably plascticine. It has near zero elasticity. Metals are also plastic after the yield strength is exceeded. This is why you can form metals with extreme force and/or heat. The elastic limit is reduced by the application of heat.

Haha: Took me a bit. I thought you were serious on first read.

Correct: You trade speed for force. I agree that crossbows can be built with much higher penetration since you are not limited by human arm strength. The ultimate example is a ballista. Crank wound and probably only shoot every minute or so, but they can shoot a gigantic bolt of probably 10 lbs at somewhere in that 300 fps speed. Now that is penetration.

But we started with the basic discussion that simple goat's foot type crossbows that are fairly quick to load (say 2-3 per minute) have more penetration than a longbow.

I think this is the crux of the matter. It's very difficult to learn to shot a longbow. While crossbows are quite easy to learn to shot. There is another very important advantage to a crossbow. You can carry it loaded. Which brings into play the huge advantage of volley fire. It takes a great deal more coordination to get volley fire with bows. It's quite difficult to hold a longbow drawn for any time and aim gets worse as you hold it. You can hold a crossbow ready to fire for a long time.

Well, interesting discussion. I know I'm annoying the heck out of LingChih by keeping it going but I'm having fun.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

The angle of the impact also plays a role in armor penetration. I don't think longbows were really efficient at penetration while using indirect fire, which is mandatory to shoot at long distances.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I don't think anyone has the right to lock this thread. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT SOMEONE WINS.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

I didn't realise the objective was to pierce through a completely flat wall standing upright on even ground.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

And if we're being picky then we can talk about efficiency losses depending on material too - coefficient of restitution etc. are probably quite relevant here. I seem to remember that the maximum return on the energy you put into a bow is on the order of 1/3, and that the rate of return is in some way dependent on the length of the bow.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

What is firepower about exactly ? A French Lancer or Gendarme unit is a bit like a moving wall, with pointy stuffs.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Read Devices and Desires, by KJ Parker, if you really want to get anal about all of this.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

Medievel longbows and medieval crossbows were tested for penetration, both historically and in period rexaminations.

Penetrating power was found to be almost the same. Which isn't as crazy as it sounds, as they used the same waxed hemp strings.

The primary advantage of crossbows were the ease of rounding up troops, (and hence any old peasant would do). Vs the cost of training long bowman.

A unit of crossbowman were probably 1/2 as effective as a unit of longbowman. And probably 1/5 the cost - and with a much broader pool of people that you could draw to form the units - they were much more available.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

This leads to the question of artillery. Why are there no scorpions (heavy, long range crossbow), or other heavy artillery in the game?

God, I can't believe I just added to this thread again.

Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
 

According to the siege engineers description, he makes the equipment for sieging. It is apparently not used in the battles. For those you use mages as heavy artillery.