[MachingunJoeTurbo]

@Sombre

When young children are referring to "magical pebbles that grow trees" I'll hold you to what you said. How am I troll? I prefaced that factoid with an inference that I was intentionally being silly which is why I'm not badgering people about it when they use it elsewhere. And it is still true that "fire" is not the appropriate term. It is still incorrect.

Originally Posted by Endoperez

I haven't seen longbows used in the way you describe, in games or in movies. What games are you talking about, and what, exactly, is this magical aiming effect?

At least to me, your original mention of arcing seemed to ignore the fact that the archers have more options than "straight" and "arc of X degrees". Changing the angle the arrows are fired at will also affect the place where they come down, obviously. While it can't be used always, it would allow for some flexibility. The constant force is also a limit for crossbows, also used in similar manner.

Unless it has been patched is it not true in this game where crossbows will shoot the backs of troops they are behind of while arrows will go over? That's what I'm referring to. Both bows and crossbows are limited by constant force because a bow has to be balanced to it's anchor and pulled the same way every time. The difference is , is that crossbows do not allow for the same degree of human error because the string always rests on the "nut" (the part that rolls over when the trigger is pulled). While with a bow that spot is inconsistently reached especially in the heat of battle.

I think you missed Agema's point here. He also said that the English didn't have other range weapons to sub in. Money was a big part of this.

Longbows are cheaper than crossbows, and a trained man can load a longbow faster than he can a crossbow. If your goal is to fire as many arrows/bolts into the enemy army fast, longbows do it better than crossbows, both because their rate of fire is better and because they are cheaper, ergo you can afford more longbowmen.


As far as I know, there was no other cheap ranged weapon that could fire at a comparable distance, in the time period we are talking about. If longbow is the only such weapon, then the English couldn't have used the tactic of massed archers with anything but the longbow. I can't see anything wrong with this logic. Unless you know something I don't, that means longbows really were the superior choice, for this single instance.

Due to the money situation they were more or less forced into a position regardless yes I mentioned this a while back too. But what was necessary for England at the time does not equate to an absolute optimal decision in general. Also there is a misconception with rate of shooting . The simple reason is that when you consider all the negative factors effecting the quality per arrow of the longbow this number is not as significant as it may seem at first glance.

Given the poor leadership of their enemies at the time I do not feel a massed archer strategy was necessary and in the long run it was a hindrance.

We are not talking about longbows and crossbows in this game, but about their historical usage. Since we're talking about how the English used their longbows, we should talk about the time and place they used the longbows in.

Well the purpose of a historical discussion in a game forum, to be on topic, is to gain insight and what is right for ingame mechanics.

This sounds more like something from the period when firearms and rank-fighting were in use. To my knowledge, crossbows were never used like this, but I could be wrong. Can you post any example? It's an intriguing image, and I'd be interested in reading more about it.

Alternating shooting is present in multiple pictures of the period such as in German usage books and in Froissart's manuscripts. It's a described technique in the ancient Chinese military. The descriptions of the "streams" are present in the wars of Charles VIII in Sweden and the Hussite Crusades. I can't name any specific books for the moment as it's been quite a while. Like everyone else here I'm simply casually sharing.

Actually, if the arrows is fired higher up it will come down nearer to the archer, not farther away. It took me some time to find the term, but "clout shooting" or "clout practice" describes the act of firing inside an area marked on the ground. With enough practice, a longbowman would at least be less likely to miss, especially if he wasn't aiming at a lone soldier but, say, a group of cavalry.

I don't know how longbowmen were stationed in the battlefield, but of course they couldn't be stationed so close to each other that they wouldn't have space to fire or aim. However, since the weapon has rather long range, it isn't necessary. It would make defending an army or longbowmen more difficult than an army of crossbowmen, since the longbowmen would cover a larger area. However, as I said above, crossbows couldn't be massed (by English) in such numbers any way.

I know that but extreme high angle shots would be...unwise as you risk raking your own ranks. You would gain distance and then at some point get closer however that "closer" area could be hit with a direct shot in any case. And again training goes only so far when you consider the fickleness of the weapon. Imagine an expert marksmen using a modern firearm and each shot has a different character. Is it possible for his training to overcome it when he cannot predict how each shot will behave? Perhaps to a degree. But now flip it on it's head. Is it possible to train an expert marksman in the first place with such a weapon? I would say...not really. No longbow volley could be cohesive enough to hit even a blob with the same amount of cohesion of other weapons.

There have been other armies that used huge amounts of archers, and longbows have been used by specialized hunters (and the like) in other places. The proper question is, has anyone else ever trained an army of longbowmen?

It is an interesting question, for two reasons:
1) If longbows are so useful, why didn't anyone else do it?
2) If they aren't superior weapons, why did the English do it?

I think the second question has been answered in this thread: for the English, it was cheaper and/or more efficient to mass longbows than other similar weapons, like crossbows.

Now the question becomes, why did they need so many archers? I found someone who thought it was because archers were good against CAVALRY, not infantry. Arrows would kill and/or wound unarmored horses, and the presence of longbowmen would force the French to dismount. It was just one person and he didn't cite any sources, so make of that what you will.

The longbow was a major part of India for a long long time. And I already mentioned Assaye and the not good things that happened to those guys. You wouldn't see an "army" (and I'm assuming you mean some quantifiable number greater than "huge amount") because it wasn't really a good idea. The ultimate failures of such a system become evident when they you know...lost horribly. The English did it because of cost reasons and got stuck so to speak which is a recurrent problem with the country throughout it's history similar to how they were slow to change from hand cutting coal to machine cut which hampered their industry (obviously much latter in history).

Originally Posted by Chrispederson

This is just poppycock.
It was common military practice in the medieval ages to

a). Mark out spacings around castles as markers so bowmen and artillery knew how hard to pull for the effective range.

b). It was often done to fire same at *less* than full strength to deceive your opponent as to the maxiumum range of your pieces.

According to your argument that each bow had a specific "sweet spot". Nonsense. If you are saying that a bow had to be pulled with 40 lbs of strength - Imagine how hard it would be to match each bowman to each bow.

It is much rather true that each bow had a *Wide* range of acceptable pull strengths. And generally, the harder you pulled it the farther the arror flies.

Competitions in the middle ages were held at various distances, with some at more than 1000 feet.

Bows DO have an anchor. You can't overdraw a bow or you damage it. And if you underdraw it they arrow won't even fly straight not to mention even if it did it would be significantly weaker. Yes precisely it is HARD to balance each bow. This is why such a weapon in that time period is inherently INCONSISTENT.

Other points:
While crossbows did have the ability for a moderate amount of ascenscion- they had essentially no ability for declension.

Talented bowman could put 5 arrows in the air in two seconds - and putting three arrows in a bird before it hit the ground. You can't even begin to compare the rate of fire of a crossbow.

Saying things is rocks scissors paper is a little misleading - yes, after a time systems and tactics develop to compensate for a new weapon.

However the longbow was an amazing and groundbreaking development.

LOL you are vastly overestimating the rate of shooting for a bow as well as their possible accuracy.

And can you clarify what you said about crossbow "declension" I do not get your meaning.

The longbow was NOT an "amazing and groundbreaking development" because it is neither amazing nor groundbreaking since in that time period the weapon was already old as dirt.