Crossbows vs. Longbows

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

The way I understand it, it is very simple. You want more arrows in the air, but most peasants couldn't he anything with a longbow and they might even have trouble pulling it back. But, with crossbows anyone can kind of aim, and you can really pack them together. You don't need to pay them much at all.

As in:
"No longbows? We'll just get 3-4x the number in x-bows then..."

It is very similar to one of the Chinese, I think, general or mathmaticians that showed that obtaining victory and the scale of that victory is propotional (and related to) how many arrows you fire. So, rather than using a simple to aim crossbow, they went with repeating crossbows that are near impossible to aim, but that fire very quickly. He appears to have been quite right. (I believe I heard of this on PBS, not the History Channel).

As far as banning them, the reality is that the x-bow could be used by brigands like a saturday night special to kill laws enforcement. It took no skill... So, argue, I suppose about the benefits of gun control, but if there weren't that many, stopping production might have been just the thing to do.

sun tzu said that casualties are the square of the effective ratios of troops. And roughly he was correct.

So for example if you outnumber your enemy 3:2, your casualties will be of the ratio 4:9.

These rules of war were later expanded on by Liddell Hart; generally an interesting and controversial guy.