Crossbows vs. Longbows

[MachingunJoeTurbo]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

You missed the point. Operator (the archer) can change his equipment and adapt.

A skilled acher A without mechanical aid will shoot worse than skilled archer B with mechanical aid.
If both use bows WITHOUT mechanical aid, A will shoot better than B because B hasn't learned to judge things without his aids.
Which one would shoot better, if BOTH used mechanical aids? Will the things A has learned before using an aid offset the fact that B has more experience shooting with an aid?

Again you keep returning to aid in the form of aiming. Aid includes things such as weapon quality and the quality of the shot of an arrow not only the "sights" as someone mentioned before. Just because you take the hard way around doesn't mean the results are inherently better. If someone sings a beautiful opera standing up and someone seeks a very meh opera standing on his head juggling poodles with his feet who is the better singer? If you are judging by RESULTS the guy who standing wins. To judge poodle guy the winner you have to operate on faith that without the poodles the potential skill level would rise up to overcome the other singer. Longbowmen were stuck with their "poodles" from the very beginning and were worse for it because the RESULTS are going to be much much worse. There is no magical human potential that uplifts them.

Second, colonialist and imperialist times were different. I haven't studied the time, but gunpowder weapons would make huge difference. For one, gunpowder made knights obsolete, something longbows and crossbows never managed.

They are not really different because those powers fought nations who were more or less still in the previous age using previous age weaponry. The imperialist would not have prevailed if there was a distinct tactical on battlefield advantage. And if by knight you meant mounted troops with a powerful charge no they did not disappear in practice. Cavalry was still very much in use.

Third, crossbows and firearms aren't related. A gun isn't "better crossbow". That's like saying water-pistols are based on crossbows. Some guns are held like crossbows and I guess almost all have a trigger, but there are many guns that are nothing like the crossbow, and many of the things that make guns superior would be impossible in a crossbow.

Incorrect. Guns and crossbows are so alike the conquistadors used them interchangeably in their accounts. The principles in their use are alike in the main ways I already mentioned. The advantages of a held missile weapon as to achieve greater frontage, rotating ranks, improved defensive posture, and so on. Guns in their use are evolution of the crossbows uses. The Maître des Arbalétriers in France eventually evolved to the Maître de l'artillerie for that reason.

Originally Posted by Agema

Were they highly trained? Well disciplined? Good morale? I'd suggest overwhelmingly they were not. Many also did not have (as) good bows. Or they did not use massed bowfire. In fact, several times those Indian longbowmen actually took a fair toll on the English in battles.

And why wouldn't they be as trained as a medieval longbowmen? And just as well disciplined? Are you seriously suggesting that a culture who had the longbow for hundreds and hundreds of years to the sophistication that they could make them from STEEL wouldn't have as good bows? LOL? And how good a bow do you need to penetrate a bright red jacket? And with the numbers they had they should have taken much more than a significant toll especially since at Assaye they had much more artillery and in fact the Indians had superior rocketry technology. But they didn't win. You are still operating on faith that English longbowmen were somehow special compared to EVERYBODY else on the planet.

You continually misportray Patay. Firstly, the English were caught unprepared with barely the time to form up, which has doomed many armies. Secondly, what you dismissively call "scouts" were HEAVY CAVALRY. Thirdly, the English (5000) outnumbered the French (1500) as a whole, but in fact there were well under 1000 longbowmen, who had neither got their stakes up properly (which you half-concede), were not supported by melee troops, nor had their flanks secured.

They were formed up they had TIME to hammer some stakes down. How prepared do those sorry jokers need to be? LOL! There were lot of archers as usual if the longbow was a rapid shooting crazy machine of awesomeness said cavalry would have been toast. But it didn't happen. Because they weren't as good as you think they are.

I severely doubt longbowmen were present in the Hussite crusades or Burgundian wars in significant numbers, or that the generals using them would be accustomed to their best usage, if indeed they even could get best usage given the relatively small number of them available.

The Hussite Crusades were a big deal. Everybody was spamming troops at them. Longbowmen were a major part of Charles the Bold's military identity to point where they are continually featured in depictions of his army.

That's like saying railways evolved from canals. Firearms did not evolve from the crossbow or the bow.

Addressed above.

[Wrana]

By the way, in the current discussion nobody is going to prove anything as both sides continually oversimplify and use "common sense" approach instead of comparing data. (And India example isn't going to prove anything as there was NO army in history that didn't conquer it at one time or another - except possibly Romans... )

[Adept]

Dominions has a good balance with crossbows and longbows (as well as regular bows too). I own crossbows and my wife has a longbow. I have absolutely no problem with the mechanics in Dominions.

[Dedas]

The crossbow touches me in bad places... But seriously this discussion is getting silly.

[Agema]

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

[
Incorrect. Guns and crossbows are so alike the conquistadors used them interchangeably in their accounts. The principles in their use are alike in the main ways I already mentioned. The advantages of a held missile weapon as to achieve greater frontage, rotating ranks, improved defensive posture, and so on. Guns in their use are evolution of the crossbows uses. The Maître des Arbalétriers in France eventually evolved to the Maître de l'artillerie for that reason.
...

Addressed above.

No. Firearms replaced crossbows where crossbows were prevalent, and replaced bows where bows were prevalent. Early firearm usage more closely relates to the crossbow due to the fire rate and weapon shape, but that does not in any way mean it evolved from crossbows.

And why wouldn't they be as trained as a medieval longbowmen? And just as well disciplined? Are you seriously suggesting that a culture who had the longbow for hundreds and hundreds of years to the sophistication that they could make them from STEEL wouldn't have as good bows? LOL? And how good a bow do you need to penetrate a bright red jacket? And with the numbers they had they should have taken much more than a significant toll especially since at Assaye they had much more artillery and in fact the Indians had superior rocketry technology. But they didn't win. You are still operating on faith that English longbowmen were somehow special compared to EVERYBODY else on the planet.

Discipline, experience, morale and training etc. obviously have nothing to do with how long a culture has had a technology, and there's plenty of evidence the Indian archers of the period did not score highly on most of those counts.

The musket was superior to the longbow or crossbow, equally obviously. No-one's trying to claim bow-armed troops would casually massacre an army 400-500 years more advanced.

(And secondly, you previously said "bow wielding indigenous populations" from which we could infer Native Americans, Dervishes, or whoever else. Now you're just changing your argument to specify Indians.)

They were formed up they had TIME to hammer some stakes down. How prepared do those sorry jokers need to be? LOL! There were lot of archers as usual if the longbow was a rapid shooting crazy machine of awesomeness said cavalry would have been toast. But it didn't happen. Because they weren't as good as you think they are.

I don't think any archers on the planet, ever, could stop a heavy cavalry charge without adequate infantry support, a proper defensive position, or being on a horse themselves to move away. That applies to crossbows or longbows.

I think you are treating everyone arguing with you here as a "longbow fanboy" (in your own words). Your arguments amount to little more than misrepresenting us as if we think a few longbowmen instantly dominate any battlefield. As everyone has gone to great, great pains to state this is not the case, I do not understand why you persist with it. Until you wish to be reasonable, I don't see the point continuing this debate.

[Humakty]

What everyone forgets about english victories in the early period of the hundred years war, is the english king of that time was a military genius compared to french one. He devised a clever plan to take care of french superiority in cavalry. While our king just charged forward.

So I don't think we can say english equipment of that time was superior to french one, no more we can say french equipment was superior to all others in 1800 due to the success of Napoleon.

Sun Tzu explains quite clearly in his book that military success is all about surprising your ennemy, and outwitting him, than just having bigger guns. The (all relative) failure of USA forces during some of their campains well shows that just having many high tech big guns is not enougth to ensure a victory. (I'm more precisely thinking about the campain of france in 1944 : they lost as many men than the germans, having total superiority in many domains (air, supplies...))

And someone said england was a better place to be a peasant in the medieval era than the continental countries. Well, I'm sure it is for this reason that England was the first country in europe to get rid of a dinasty. By chopping some crowned heads off....

[Agema]

The English Civil War was a power struggle between the king and the gentry (= minor aristocracy). Peasants were neither here nor there, nor were they in the French Revolution.

I'd agree though that there's probably little evidence to say an English peasant was in a better position than a Continental peasant, although Western European peasants were better off than Eastern European serfs.

[Aezeal]

I think some one needs to contact a prof specialized in this field since it's obvious all points of view can get backed up by some web page or another

[Humakty]

I must agree that peasants were rarely part of anything political during medieval time. Too busy suffering maybe ?

The main problem with history is that it's all about theories, with little evidence. People never think about leaving fool prof evidence ahead of time. Rather the contrary, in fact. (if this message upsets anyone, I'm sorry, as usual...Blah,blah,blah... no intention to cause harm or...blah, blah,blah... not sue able in anyway.Thanks for reading.)

[Agema]

There's nothing like the web for allowing lots of people who don't know enough about something to spout opinions based on the webpage opinions of other people who don't know enough either.

We could probably boil the longbow versus crossbow debate down to: "Both worked well in their own different ways".