Crossbows vs. Longbows

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Humakty

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.

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

[Humakty]

Originally Posted by Sombre

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

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

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Humakty

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.

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.

[Sombre]

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

[Gregstrom]

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.

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.

[Lingchih]

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

[Lingchih]

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.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

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.

Yeah, I started a mod for siege units. Gave up when I ran into art. = )

[BigDaddy]

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.

[Dhaeron]

Wee! Can't resist keeping this thread alive. (And it was about time to finally post something here after lurking for years)

I've been doing archery as a hobby for while a while so i hope i'm somewhat knowledgeable about the subject.
The big problem with using a strong bow is not so much aiming (which works very well) or learning how to use it, but to build up the muscles needed to use it. Despite the claims of many computer and PnP RPGs (whose creators probably never touched a bow in their lives) using a bow repeatedly requires significant muscle mass and enormous stamina. Shooting a 100lb bow is pretty much like lifting 100lb barbells, with one arm, repeatedly. And Under battlefield conditions the proverb was: Accuracy is nice, but go for volume. Shooting ten or more arrows a minute was desirable. But go ahead and try that with a bucket of water and see how often you manage until it feels like your arm falls off.
It takes months, or even years of training to build up the kind of stamina needed to keep shooting for more than a very short time. Shooting with a reasonable degree of accuracy can be learned in a few days though.

A crossbow on the other hand can be used by anyone, anytime.

Another fun fact is that medieval and ancient crossbows (the greeks already used them) reached mostly the same projectile velocity as bows, mostly because that's limited more by the materials available for the arrows & bolts, than by the materials available for the bows & crossbows. A big part of why compound bows can have stronger pull is that they increase acceleration over time, putting less strain on the arrow.
Since crossbow bolts are shorter than arrows, they were generally lighter in medieval times, making them overall perform worse.
With modern materials crossbows can easily outperform bows, and it can be possible with medieval materials as well, but people didn't have the knowledge of physics back then to design them that way.