What everyone forgets about english victories in the early period of the hundred years war, is the english king of that time was a military genius compared to french one. He devised a clever plan to take care of french superiority in cavalry. While our king just charged forward.
So I don't think we can say english equipment of that time was superior to french one, no more we can say french equipment was superior to all others in 1800 due to the success of Napoleon.
Sun Tzu explains quite clearly in his book that military success is all about surprising your ennemy, and outwitting him, than just having bigger guns. The (all relative) failure of USA forces during some of their campains well shows that just having many high tech big guns is not enougth to ensure a victory. (I'm more precisely thinking about the campain of france in 1944 : they lost as many men than the germans, having total superiority in many domains (air, supplies...))
And someone said england was a better place to be a peasant in the medieval era than the continental countries. Well, I'm sure it is for this reason that England was the first country in europe to get rid of a dinasty. By chopping some crowned heads off....
Re: Crossbows vs. Longbows
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