Crossbows vs. Longbows

[MachingunJoeTurbo]

@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.

Originally Posted by rdonj

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by chrispederson

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.