Crossbows vs. Longbows

[Dragar]

Seeing as the longbow/crossbow discussion is petering out, surely its time for someone to bring up the old katana vs western sword chestnut?

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by Dragar

Seeing as the longbow/crossbow discussion is petering out, surely its time for someone to bring up the old katana vs western sword chestnut?

I'm in as soon as we get into the Alien vs Predator one

[rdonj]

That was a pretty good post MachinGun, informative and calm, this is a post I can appreciate

Well looking at Thilock Dominus' list I can see how I fit parts of certain profiles, Contrarion and Agenda, made me blush a bit. But I have not done any different than any other poster sharing what they know. I did not notice many dropping down the hardcore literary works and I don't have a problem with that but I don't feel that what I have been saying has been that alien. I think part of the problem is that some of you take section of things you've heard about their battles that have been...romanced up and you make inferences about mechanics. I'm taking what non-expert knowledge I have about bow mechanics and combining them with the same non-expert knowledge on somewhat lesser known battles. I played the demo a long while ago. I don't know if it has changed but the one I had was limited to the early age and I did not see an active faction with the whole breadth of weapons. I read about crossbows shooting in the back from an AAR about the faction who develops into a "cave blind society" I don't remember the name. It was when the forums were a light brown color. I had forgotten about this game, distracted with school and remembered it when I saw it on Somethingawful.

I don't know where you were reading that, but you are most certainly talking about Agartha. I don't remember for sure when they get crossbows, but I think they have them in all ages other than early. You missed all the crossbows, as they do not appear at all in the early age. There are a select few who do get them in MA though. I'm pretty sure no nation gets a full selection from all the different types of ranged weapons in one era. For example MA or LA T'ien Ch'i gets Composite Bows and Crossbows, whereas for example LA Man gets Longbows and Crossbows. In EA most nations have only shortbows, slings and javelins, while T'ien Ch'i for example always has crossbows. In case you'd be interested in a rundown, human nations rate their weapons from slings to short bows, then composite bows, then longbows, then crossbows. There is also a heavy crossbow that does a bit more damage but fires slower. And to more directly address what you were talking about, the poster was probably referring to Agarthans poor eyesight causing them to take a lot of friendly fire. Archery tends to cause a lot of friendly fire in Dominions, and Agarthans are even worse because they have low precision. Every ranged weapon is capable of shooting over other units though.

Plus some of the things I thought should have been easy to look up. Take what I said about arrows and the devices that modern times have come up to help us with them. Take a look at this archery site that explains how to adjust the plunger button and "tune" your arrows.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar...oliviritys.htm

Look at the little diagram. Remember where I said the arrow was against the bow? See how the arrow is wiggling on its node points? Look at all the complicated steps you need to take to make sure it's a good arrow and then adjusting the plunger. Doing the test again with and without fletchings. See the grouping. I think the site mentions that's at a mere 7 seven meters. That distance becomes even more awful at "need to kill a man range." And this is WITH a modern bow. WITH modern arrows. WITH high-tech materials And WITH devices like a plunger to make you sure you get it right.

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.

Now go back and look at medieval times. How could they know even a smidgen of what we know now? Imagine the quality control with the need to crank out all those arrows. Would they all test them like that? Did they even have the tools to do so? Even if they could would they?

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.

And that's just the weapon itself. Look at what must be done with actually shooting it.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar.../tekniikka.htm

Look at the steps. The need to stand in the proper posture. The need to hold the bow correctly. Here's a sentence in the very beginning that stands out...

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.

[Sombre]

It has nothing to do with 'shooting in the back' though. It's just that at range missiles weapons are no longer accurate and projectiles are much more likely to hit your own troops and irritate you when there are like 3 enemy soldiers running away and your army of 300 is hot on their heels.

[KissBlade]

I think the point Kamamura is trying to make was that wasting crossmen men to simply saturate a field indirectly is pointless. Where the longbow is more easily fielded (think AK-47's), the crossbow due to it's higher cost and greater precision fire seems to be more like a sniper rifle.

[Agema]

Considering the people of the medieval and ancient era managed to do stuff as complex as build Hagia Sophia, make Attic pottery and craft intricate jewellery, I think we can expect the average medieval bowyer to be able to make a pretty reliable bow. I suspect a trained archer could also adapt to a new bow of the same basic design pretty quickly.

I saw some program where a modern guy did horse archery and could fairly reliably hit a conventional archery target at 30 yards or so whilst the horse was moving. Also, if you consider an archer has to hit a block of infantry/cavalry however much wide and maybe 4-10 ranks deep, he's got a fair bit of room for inaccuracy.

[Dedas]

And then imagine that the ancient horse archer were born on horseback with a bow as their first toy, and I say would say accuracy would not be a problem.

[MachingunJoeTurbo]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Hmm, I didn't quite mean it that way. What I was trying to say that I think training an archer on a longbow as opposed to a compound bow would be better in the long run for the archer, because it would foster more the personal skill of the archer. With a compound bow you rely on a lot of crutches to maximize your accuracy. Sights on your bow that can and frequently do come loose from the force expended in firing. Special release triggers that could break in the middle of battle or get lost in a baggage train. All those niggling little things in that article you linked. Everything we do with the modern compound bow is to make the shot rely as little on the archer and as much on the bow as possible... which would make it very easy for everything to fall apart if something is misaligned. If you're just relying on yourself and you're used to relying on yourself, it's a lot easier to compensate than when you've not trained yourself how to. When everything is working properly with the compound bow you'll have great accuracy, but when things get misaligned you have to spend a significant amount of time retuning the equipment.

Again personal skill cannot overcome mechanical disadvantages because an archer does not control his arrow in mid flight. There is only so much he can do. And relying on mechanical aid is a good thing. A human being is more likely to be inconsistent than a misaligned machine because at least a misaligned machine is much more likely to be inconsistent the same way.

And I am somewhat doubtful that an archer would not know how his next shot would behave. That seems unlikely to me. While it is true that back then they didn't have the same kind of quality control that we did I am not so sure that some small imperfections in the crafting of the bow would have such a drastic effect on its accuracy. A bow made by some random peasant who's never made a bow before, sure, I'll agree it's probably not going to come out very well. But a bow made by someone who knows what they're doing, that's a bit different of a story. Besides, having used the bow for hours and hours of practice you would learn if your bow maybe shoots a bit to the left, or a bit high, etc. You would learn how to compensate for any small degree of imperfection. Or you would use the bow for firewood if it just can't shoot straight. Although really, I don't think there's a whole lot that can go terribly wrong in the making of the bow itself... it would seem to me that their biggest problem hundreds of years ago would be in the bowstring.

Is a soldier going to be able to keep the same bow he has on the field and "forever?" Is the soldier going sure of the quality of the arrows? Even if the soldier had the same bow and we were assured it's quality was constant so he could "get use to it" he couldn't be sure of the quality of his arrows and if you admit variances within the bow then you know that the arrows themselves cannot be truly right for it. To truly know how your bow "behaves" you have to assume that arrows were a constant quality which you yourself admit that would be problematic in the paragraph after this one.

I still think you overestimate just how hard it is to fire a bow properly . The difference between a perfect shot and a middling-good shot (which is most of what you should be getting in battlefield conditions at moderate range, I think), is with the perfect shot you hit the guy in the middle of the torso. With the middling shot you might hit him in the arm, stomach, or maybe a leg. With a very poor shot, you'll go over his head, hit the ground in front of him, or the arrow will fly off to a side... and two of those shots still have a chance to hit someone else. Plus if you're shooting into a packed mass of soldiers like at agincourt it would be hard to miss completely and not hit anyone at all. And at least while you're not being shot at and people aren't close enough to stab you, it should not be too hard to fire properly. Taking the example of the bike in a battlefield... are you going to forget how to ride? Maybe you'll exaggerate some of the motions. Maybe with all the adrenaline you'll fall off trying to ride away while someone's shooting in your general direction. But then you'll get back on the bike and keep on peddling. I will freely admit there's more chance of human error with a bow, and less ease of profile minimalization. Those are unfortunate drawbacks to the weapon.

And wouldn't you say a bike relies a lot on "mechanical aid?" Such that the level of inputs you put in to get a bike to work is much less than one you need to get a bow to "work." I think you are underestimating the raw fear that a battlefield instills in somebody. A musket is considered an easy to use weapon but there are plenty of instances where weapons have been found with multiple loads in them due to panic.

Also you assume that a missed arrow that still hits somebody is the same quality of one that hits an intended target directly. The very nature of how an arrow leaves the bow has a great effect on its character. I think your assumption that the arrow wouldn't vary that much is too optimistic and the implication that an "off" arrow is just as good as a direct arrow is too ambitious as well. The rush and panic to pump out arrows is likely to mean that the archers aren't pulling as far as they need to leading to significant veering and falling short.

Depends where, probably not but depends on how sick, probably because you train to pull the bow back to the same spot every time, and if you were too scared to do that you'd probably be running for dear life . Let's reverse that, crossbows have a higher draw weight per bow strength than an ordinary bow has, and required mechanical means to draw them. Could a crossbowman draw his crossbow when sick, wounded, or scared out of his mind? I would guess the answers are pretty similar to mine for the longbow actually, though I admit to never having fired a crossbow, particularly a medieval crossbow.

Being sick and sapped for strength would make the elbow grease required to load a crossbow problematic yes, but crossbows have periods of rest (when it's loaded) to help compensate. Since the range of motion required is not as involved you are more likely to be able to load it compared to drawing and shooting a bow and since you cannot screw up form since the string must be pulled to the nut (same spot) unlike a longbow which relies on the archer. The less things a human can screw up the better.

Originally Posted by Gregstorm

This is an assumption I just plain disagree with. It is patronising at the very least to assume that because medieval craftsmen lacked modern technology they couldn't work wood to a high standard.

High standard compared to what? How could a medieval craftsmen compete with new materials made with computer modeling? How is that notion patronizing? And again the major issue here is consistency. Even if they were high standard were they all the same kind of standard? The arrow and the bow are simply too dependent upon one another. And even if you could achieve perfection you notice the bending of the arrow along it's node points prevent a truly exact hit because of it's inherent buckling and the flopping of the head of the arrow makes it much less likely for a truly direct contact.

Again I dipute this blanket assumption that medieval skills couldn't make an arrow tht would fly true.

I will agree, though, that goods mass produced for the military were likely to be substandard. As noted elsewhere, though, it may well be the case that battlefield longbow use was more about hitting an area reliably than about precision targetting of individuals. In which case the point is more or less moot.

Your assertion only works if getting it into that area is a given and it simply isn't. And a cohesive volley is more effective and you don't get that without "precision."

I believe that's down to training, in much the same way as modern armies do it. Since military training was being done pretty darn well by the 1st century BC, I don't think this argument holds very much water.

The problem with this statement is that more modern armies with "slow easy to use weapons," the imperialistic powers with their guns tore indigenous populations using the old school a new one. Your argument would only hold water if the quality of these old school armies like India with it's longbows would be smacking around those powers using that old timey shooty magic. I don't see what your saying holding water unless a delorean full of Uzis is involved.

Ooh, sounds a bit like an assembly line. You know, one of those manufacturing techniques that reduces cost due to increased efficiency? (not that crossbows wouldn't still be expensive, of course)
Please note: the guy you're quoting specified that the costs he mentioned weren't financial but the availability of trained men and speed of bow manufacture.

Well he says otherwise in a later post LOL. But anyway an assembly line cannot be compared to individual dedicated craftsmen. Regular bows were easier to pump out I mean a lot of these composite crossbows used whale bone. Do you think it's easier to get a whale, kill it, remove it's whaley meats, get the bone, and craft the bone than to chop down a tree? Plus crossbows needed wood for that composite (yew) so you had to chop down tree too. I'm telling you no way in heck can crossbows be cheaper.

I do see one big advantage to feudal lords for the crossbow - most peasants aren't going to own them because of the price. Not having a workforce who can shoot you if they don't like your taxes is a Good Thing.

Unruly peasants were always a problem however, longbowmen were not true peasants but belonged to a class called Franklins. The whole longbowmen was a mere peasant thing fighting snooty nobles for FREEEEEDOOOOM is somewhat of a historical revisionism with a political axe to grind. The majority of true peasants were still quite screwed.

Originally Posted by Incabulos

heh you ask me we have lost plenty of knowledge from past ages in all aspects of art, construction and science and skill and craftsmanship has gone down.

Mass production has seen to that. Scientific undertanding of a subject does not = practical ability. And there are plenty of things that we cannot match the quality of today. from violins to swords to construction techniques. Architecture is probably the most striking example though.

Huh? Err you honestly don't think a sky scraper or a space station is more impressive and requires more practical ability than what they had in the middle ages? Scientific understanding is what refines and takes "practical ability" to new heights. And they can make carbon nanotube blades now I believe. If you had modern day sword guy vs. medieval sword guy assuming equal skill medieval sword guy would lose...badly. Even without the modern stuff the mere superior health of the modern guy would be enough. It is silly to think that some guy in medieval times can crank out a better bow than one produced with all the materials technology, computers, and techniques of today. Medieval craftsmen were not Mentats.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Dude. I made a fully functional crossbow, that would penetrate 2" of wood in 5th grade.

Radical? Cowabunga? What is this suppose to tell me again?

The "bow" part of the weapon is called a stock. And no, you don't need any particular bowyer skill.

No. The "bow" part as in the limbs were the magic shooty elves live is the prod or lath. The stock is called the tiller. You need bowyer skill as well as other folks. Also chicks dig guys with skills.

I think you have *no* general idea of the level of complexity that societies of the time were capable of generating. For example, looms of the times had up to ***10,000*** moving parts.
To think that societies couldn't crank out crossbows with 10-24 parts cheaply is .. simply laughable.

Looms come in many varieties like simple hand looms. You're making it sound like the 10,000 part uber loom is the norm for these peoples like a washing machine for the average peasant. Not to mention a loom is constantly producing a good recuperating its cost. A crossbow comes from a series of parts produced by dedicated craftsmen who want to be PAID and who need materials who are collected by people who also need to be paid and has to be made over and over again. And if you are judging parts as cost well how many "parts" does a regular bow have?

The reason looms were successful is the same reason that crossbows were successful. Large amounts of standardized parts could be cranked out, and assembled, quickly and cheaply.

Doesn't work like that in those days. You cannot compare dedicated medieval craftsmen to modern day assembly.

And yes, compared to knights, sappers, artillerymen, crossbowmen *were* cheap.

A knight of "gentle birth" is going to need money yes obviously but a sapper? And artilleryman as an "engineer" type or generic mook to carry and help assemble? LOL no. Crossbowmen were not cheap. Their wages were high and the weapon themselves ensure that.

Crossbowmen had essentially no need to train. These troops were often raised in mere weeks, vs. the years required to gain excellence with the longbow. Because they had virtually no training - they were easier to raise, deployable from virtually any population. And when killed they were easily replaceable.

GWAHAHAHAHA! Easier to use does not mean "easy for everybody." This is not reflected in their wages as they made on average three times as much as "normal soldier" and being "number one crossbowman" was like being a minor noble in several countries. You fall under the fallacy that being easier to acclimate to a weapon implies that mastery is not possible or desirable. A modern day soldier's weapon is easier then either a longbow or crossbow. They still need to train and maintain their skills and yes there is difference between a Marine and some hobo you gave a gun to and dumped on a battlefield.


@Agema and P3D
Already addressed above and before as well.

[JimMorrison]

Every post, and this does look more and more like a personal agenda - and a very emotionally biased one, at that. On that note, I do not choose a side in this argument, I believe that both tools of war have valid applications, and that one may excel where the other fails - thus my amusement with this entire argument. But still, I want to dance with you, Joe.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

And relying on mechanical aid is a good thing. A human being is more likely to be inconsistent than a misaligned machine because at least a misaligned machine is much more likely to be inconsistent the same way.

You are gleefully missing the point. He said that working with less sophisticated equipment creates a better operator. The point boiled down to this - take a modern compound bow, and remove the sights and other "archer aids". Odds are, that the classically trained longbowman will operate that bow at a level superior to a modern archery student, who has only ever fired a bow with all of the modern accessories.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

Even if the soldier had the same bow and we were assured it's quality was constant so he could "get use to it" he couldn't be sure of the quality of his arrows and if you admit variances within the bow then you know that the arrows themselves cannot be truly right for it. To truly know how your bow "behaves" you have to assume that arrows were a constant quality which you yourself admit that would be problematic in the paragraph after this one.

Again, the theory behind the use of archers seemed to be "sheer # of pointy sticks flying through the air". Perhaps hastily crafted arrows are not suitable for target archery, or even for hunting. But they are just fine for firing at thousands of screaming soldiers. Most of them. You shrug off the bad arrows, because you have highly trained your archers to fire quickly and tirelessly, to saturate your field with projectiles.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

Also you assume that a missed arrow that still hits somebody is the same quality of one that hits an intended target directly. The very nature of how an arrow leaves the bow has a great effect on its character. I think your assumption that the arrow wouldn't vary that much is too optimistic and the implication that an "off" arrow is just as good as a direct arrow is too ambitious as well. The rush and panic to pump out arrows is likely to mean that the archers aren't pulling as far as they need to leading to significant veering and falling short.

Oddly, you are also making an -assumption- here, that disagrees very widely with historical accounts, that only precisely and purposefully fired arrows are lethal. Most bow volleys were not fired at short range, and thus were not fired directly. They are lobbed in the general direction of a foe, with the assumption that enough of them will find meat, to justify the expense.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

High standard compared to what? How could a medieval craftsmen compete with new materials made with computer modeling?

I don't know, come back to me when modern craftsmen can replicate the functional perfection of say, a Stradivarius, or the Great Pyramid. There are truly countless examples of physical feats that our predecessors performed at levels of proficiency that are as yet unmatched in modern day.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

Your assertion only works if getting it into that area is a given and it simply isn't. And a cohesive volley is more effective and you don't get that without "precision."

I believe the entire argument up to now, has been the temporal ease with which the English were able to raise large numbers of longbowmen. The point being that perhaps 1000 crossbowmen in many cases are superior to 1000 longbowmen, but 2000 longbowmen with slightly inferior ability, and slightly inferior arrows, will create a level of saturation that will -possibly- achieve the desired effect more readily. There are 2 VERY important points about this. The first is that the historical accounts are that this period was one of great success for England, so we know that the Welsh longbow must be good for something. But also, we know that there is no true way to compare the performance of the available alternatives, because we're hundreds of years past the fact. So you are arguing theory (your heartfelt beliefs in the ability of the crossbow) versus the reality of the longbow's success.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

Regular bows were easier to pump out I mean a lot of these composite crossbows used whale bone. Do you think it's easier to get a whale, kill it, remove it's whaley meats, get the bone, and craft the bone than to chop down a tree?

Many animal parts were used for composite bows (cross or traditional), but composite crossbows were not used exclusively, nor was whale bone the industry standard. Seems that ox and other more commonly seen animals yielded most of the materials.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

...you honestly don't think a sky scraper or a space station is more impressive and requires more practical ability than what they had in the middle ages? Scientific understanding is what refines and takes "practical ability" to new heights.

I do not think that anyone argued that we can do things that more primitive men could not. The point is, they also could do things that WE cannot. Pride in our accomplishments will not bring back the depth and capability of pre-modern craftsmen.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

Also chicks dig guys with skills.

Nunchuck skills?

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

GWAHAHAHAHA! Easier to use does not mean "easy for everybody." This is not reflected in their wages as they made on average three times as much as "normal soldier"

Where do you get your figures on expected medieval salaries? This is a pretty bold claim, and I think deserves a source.

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

...and being "number one crossbowman" was like being a minor noble in several countries.

Well it's a good thing that no one ever celebrated and revered master archers, or you might not have a point at all here.

<3

I have yet to see a weapon fire magic bullets, and I would agree that the longbow certainly does not do so. And neither does the crossbow.

I think your rigid thinking holds you back from the true reality of warfare (especially medieval warfare), that there is no right answer - there is only what works.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

You are gleefully missing the point. He said that working with less sophisticated equipment creates a better operator. The point boiled down to this - take a modern compound bow, and remove the sights and other "archer aids". Odds are, that the classically trained longbowman will operate that bow at a level superior to a modern archery student, who has only ever fired a bow with all of the modern accessories.

Bingo!

<3 JM


For the record, I'm on neither side of the debate. I was actually arguing a completely seperate point