Crossbows vs. Longbows

[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.