Crossbows vs. Longbows

[militarist]

Sombre, as for executing prisoners, It is not my analysis, it's what these researchers came to, and they can base their theory either on some historical evidence, or not. But It is hard for me to imagine they would invent such idea like reason of execution, without any evidences. Though, I don't know the reality. French and English historians can see reasoning of execution quite differently. It's quite normal in history. We know the "truth" mostly from those nations who could write better or who won

As for training of longbowmen...I don't really think it takes years to train, at least if we speak about English longbowmen. Otherwise they wouldn't cost twice less then swordsmen (it's historical fact from records of vassals , who supplied their people to English army for this battle.)

There is a big difference between training a sportsmen, who needs to shoot with high level of precision, and squad of archers, whose task is much simpler - just position the bow in a proper angle to horizon and use certain amount of force to deliver an arrow on a distance which he is commanded to shout. Though it requires force, it is not real "targeting" there. You are just taking part in doing shower from arrows, not shooting into the apple on a head of a princess.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by militarist

Sombre, blah blah blah blah blah

Wrong guy :]

[sector24]

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.