OT: Archery in combat

[dogscoff]

>>PVK: Most people think "gun > bow". After all, look at the
>>fire and smoke.

>Puke: this feature alone goes a long way to making the gun
>superior to the bow.

Schlock agrees with you:
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20001111.html
and
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020902.html
and pretty much every other strip

[Puke]

but why isnt there going to be any 'blam' on this mission?

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Small forces of longbow archers would certainly be effective. Reloading a musket is terribly difficult (doing it properly is, at any rate) but any imbecile can put another arrow on a bowstring.

After the battle of Gettysburg, thousands of Confederate muskets were found to be poorly loaded. The Confederates used recruited civilians as the backbone of their army, and this resulted in a massive lack of quality in fighting skills. Thousands of muskets were found to have two balls in their barrels. About two thousand had three balls. Several hundred had more, several dozen were found with over ten balls. One musket was loaded with 24 balls! Had its owner fired, he would certainly have killed someone - himself. The gun would have exploded in his face!

Had they used longbows, this would (possibly) be different. You can't fire 24 arrows at once, even an Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron could have figured that out. (Well...) If longbows outrange muskets as well, then it would CERTAINLY be handy to use them; it would be like a Napoleonic assault rifle.

African Americans browsing this thread, you should be pretty glad longbows weren't used after the Middle Ages. If the Confederates had used longbows, there would be a good chance they would have won the Civil War, and then you would probably all be working on Texan sugar plantations now.

Just speculating... what if Napoleon had used one Longbow? Firing guns and anti-tank missiles from a kilometre away, he could have wiped out the combined British and Russian armies without them even knowing what was hitting them. (Bye bye 1812 Ouverture...) He would have conquered EVERYTHING between the East side of the international date line, and the West side of the international date line. (in order east to west) How would the world look like now if Napoleon had founded "La France de la Monde"?

[Rasorow]

Methinks thou doth switch from Longbowmen to Longbow helicopters........ :-)

Rasorow

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

This is getting OT:OT here. I agree it's an interesting discussion, but methinks ye should just revert back to Ye Olde Subject of this here Thread every Once in a While...

[dogscoff]

OK then: a guy with a medieval longbow vs a modern aircraft carrier. Who would win?

I guess you could swim up to the carrier with your longbow on your back, try to sneak aboard and then stick the crew one by one. Or maybe convince one of the fighters to launch a missile at you... while you're standing on the carrier's bridge.

[Suicide Junkie]

Depends on the person...
Rambo with those explosive arrows would win easily.

[Suicide Junkie]

StrategiaInUltima said:
Just speculating... what if Napoleon had used one Longbow? Firing guns and anti-tank missiles from a kilometre away, he could have wiped out the combined British and Russian armies without them even knowing what was hitting them...

One Longbow with infinite ammo and fuel?

I suppose he could drag it within range of one of the capitals, and use the rockets to blow up their seat of government.
It could turn the tide in one major battle, and instill fear in the entire army if you don't reveal the lack of supply, ordnance and spare parts. Not to mention capable pilots.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

One modern, nuclear powered aircraft carrier, fully supplied, in any time period up to 1950.

What could it do? (Be an interesting story...)

[Suicide Junkie]

One decent modern-day library would probably trump them all in the hands of an open-minded society.