Crossbows vs. Longbows

[rdonj]

Alas, this thread was started quite some time ago. Endoperez hasn't posted in several months, and aezeal even longer. They may never read your post :P

As for the edit button, this forum only lets you edit posts for a maximum of 30 minutes after posting them. Except for the first post of a thread, which can be edited forever.

[Endoperez]

Slings are better than early, poor-quality bows used in Biblical times and during the early Roman empire. I'm not sure when bows evolved to the point where arrows had longer range than sling bullets, but Mongol recurve bows and English longbows both had better range. Those would be Longbows and Composite Bows in dominions terms.

Aezeal's guess about sling bullets not being armor-piercing also comes pretty close. The blunt trauma sling can deal is amazing, and armor doesn't help that much unless it is padded well. I think medieval armor had more protective layers of cloth and/or leather than e.g. Greek hoplites used.

I used to practice slinging and read about them quite a bit. Funny story: when I was doing my military service, we had to do a 60 km march across the woods doing all kinds of stupid stuff along the way. The first task we had to do was two-fold: to replace a person's backbag with one we made from natural materials and stuff we had with us; and to make a sling. I had my sling with me, of course, and got to shine for a moment. Unfortunately, I lost the sling later during the march, I guess it fell into a swamp when we were taking a "shortcut".

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Enderopez

Slings are better than early, poor-quality bows used in Biblical times and during the early Roman empire. I'm not sure when bows evolved to the point where arrows had longer range than sling bullets, but Mongol recurve bows and English longbows both had better range. Those would be Longbows and Composite Bows in dominions terms.

Aezeal's guess about sling bullets not being armor-piercing also comes pretty close. The blunt trauma sling can deal is amazing, and armor doesn't help that much unless it is padded well. I think medieval armor had more protective layers of cloth and/or leather than e.g. Greek hoplites used.

Didn't hoplites wear armor mostly made from linen? Although that point may be true.
Which would still leave short bows (which are the majority of bows in dominions IIRC).

Originally Posted by Azeal

In midevil times shepards had slings in wide use, IF they where so much better overall (better range etc) then they would never have started using the more expensive arrows.

Hmm, that depends what you mean by overall.
Longbows and crossbow were better than early firearms and were still replaced by them.
The sling might be more effective and less expensive to make than a shortbow, but it requires far more training to use effectively. Well, anyone can shoot a shortbow but with a sling you always risk shooting yourself in the head.
Also bows/crossbows should be superior when fighting in tight formations or medieval castles.

[Panpiper]

As I understand it, what causes the seeming discrepancy of crossbows being armor piercing while longbows are not while having longer range, is the fact that the crossbow bolts are heavier. The heaviness of crossbow bolts reduces their ability to stay aloft but at the same time gives them a greater impact, hence their ability to pierce armor. Longbows could indeed pierce armor, but they were also greatly helped at Agincourt by being fired from a higher elevation, so the extra drop lent them velocity.

[Kamamura]

One quick note - longbows, unlike crossbows, were used as an indirect fire weapon in battle (firing in high arc, the arrows coming from above). As such, it was much more difficult to take cover from them.

On the other hand, crossbow bolts from heavy crossbows were fired with terrible force - contemporary sources say they could pierce an armored knight altogether. The fact that the Pope issued a bula forbidding Christians to use crossbows against each other only prove, how feared weapon it was.

I think the composition of troops was also mainly determined by regional tradition - in England, archery had long tradition and therefore the populace supplied large numbers of bowmen. In real life, you cannot just "build" archers for money as in most games. The only game I know that reflect this is Crusader Kings - your nobles bring their subject to fight, and the troop composition depends on the social classes and terrain of the province, and you as a king can't influence it.

[MachingunJoeTurbo]

@endoperez and rdonj: Ah I see. Well at least I know I wasn't completely crazy and imagined the whole thing with the cave people.

Originally Posted by rdonj

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.

Well again I doubt a medieval bow made in medieval times could even approach something that quality wise to a modern one. The assumption that a medieval archer could be better than one with all the accessories seems dubious because in that particular example the question of the archers personal skill is not the key factor it appears in others minds which is what I was trying to get at. The weapons made in those days were simply not the quality to allow an archer assuming he could be that skilled to shoot in that manner precisely because he doesn't know how his next shot would behave. To assume that much relies on personal skill is to assume that those medieval longbows are essentially "perfect."

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.

There were guilds that attempted to do so certainly it's where we get the surname Fletcher from, but given that so many things can go wrong when creating arrows relative to modern times I am simply not seeing any real accuracy coming from there. And in terms of the need to crank them out in the sheer numbers required even if they could technically do so they wouldn't be able to. Also many of these arrows wouldn't survive in reusable condition if tested in a bow used for warfare.

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.

Well laid plans and training surviving combat in 100% percent capacity seem unlikely to me. Riding a bike on a battlefield is going to be a distinctly different experience. And as practiced as those steps could be there are still a lot of them with much less tolerance for variation. I can minimize my profile crouching with crossbow/firearm for instance and still maintain proper form. In terms of sheer number of things that can go wrong those weapons have them much much less than bows by removing how much human error can effect them. Can a longbowman draw a bow back to the same spot when wounded, when sick, when scared out of his mind? Because a crossbow must be drawn to the nut and cannot be anywhere else it is going to be in it's proper place every single time. Minimizing the effects human error is a very significant advantage.

Originally Posted by chrispederson

the length of the post does nothing to change the fact that you have been simply *wrong* on many points. The first being that the strength of the pull does affect the range fired.

Arrows have be balanced according to their bows. They have to be pulled the same way, every single time. You can't vary the pull as you claimed. The arrow will veer off in a *significant* manner. You won't have a smidgen of a hope of hitting anything. You will have negative hope. You will owe me some hope. That is how bad it will be.

The second being that while you can find exceptions(such as repeating crossbows), that the rate of fire of longbows *is* much greater than crossbows. So much so that that crossbows were fired and reloaded in ranks.

It isn't that much greater because you could not maintain it and the number you implied was simply too high in any case. Add to the fact that they could not be as accurate and the quality per arrow even if they DID hit was simply not as good presents a different picture. There is a rate and an effective rate.

Generally, a nation that puts the most effective fighting force on the field at the cheapest cost wins. Of course there are all kinds of exceptions. But crossbows allowed a very cheap unit to kill very expensive units.

I'm guessing at the numbers - but crossbows were 80% as effective at 20% of the cost. With the primary cost here for longbowmen being a restricted pool of conscripts caused by the lengthy training time, and the difficulty in churning out bows.

Crossbows are not cheap. Where do people get the notions that they were cheap? You need bowmaking skills to make the bow part of the weapon. You need someone to fashion the trigger and the small mechanics. Someone to fashion a tiller. Someone to make the string. Someone to make the device to reload the weapon. And the person to put it together could be completely different. With a bow one dude can make a bow and that is often how it was done. Someone who could produce a complete crossbow on his own was very rare and needed more people. People who had to be organized and communicate to one another. The sheer complexity of construction and the number of folks needed to be *paid* shows that this idea is faulty.

All medieval armies canvassed among their healthy citizens for soldiers and martial practice throughout their life was normal for multiple nations and so much of training is "free." This was the advantage of having troops bring their own weapons after all. When you have to start paying them yourself is when the costs rise up.

@Kamamura: Crossbows can do that too. Again there is no indirect specialty of the bow. There are helmets recovered from Wisby penetrated by bolts that came down I believe.

[rdonj]

Well again I doubt a medieval bow made in medieval times could even approach something that quality wise to a modern one. The assumption that a medieval archer could be better than one with all the accessories seems dubious because in that particular example the question of the archers personal skill is not the key factor it appears in others minds which is what I was trying to get at. The weapons made in those days were simply not the quality to allow an archer assuming he could be that skilled to shoot in that manner precisely because he doesn't know how his next shot would behave. To assume that much relies on personal skill is to assume that those medieval longbows are essentially "perfect."

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.

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.

There were guilds that attempted to do so certainly it's where we get the surname Fletcher from, but given that so many things can go wrong when creating arrows relative to modern times I am simply not seeing any real accuracy coming from there. And in terms of the need to crank them out in the sheer numbers required even if they could technically do so they wouldn't be able to. Also many of these arrows wouldn't survive in reusable condition if tested in a bow used for warfare.

I agree with you to a point here. There's just no way that they could have enough competent fletchers making enough high quality arrows designed specifically for each different bow every man in an army is using personally and supply them for any reasonable period of time. Chances are they mass produced arrows to a specific length, and if you wanted perfectly made arrows for you and your bow you'd have to make them yourself. I'm not sure the arrows wouldn't survive though, if you're testing on a hay bale for example, it's unlikely to damage the arrow itself though I wouldn't be too surprised if the fletchings were damaged.

Well laid plans and training surviving combat in 100% percent capacity seem unlikely to me. Riding a bike on a battlefield is going to be a distinctly different experience. And as practiced as those steps could be there are still a lot of them with much less tolerance for variation. I can minimize my profile crouching with crossbow/firearm for instance and still maintain proper form. In terms of sheer number of things that can go wrong those weapons have them much much less than bows by removing how much human error can effect them.

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.

Can a longbowman draw a bow back to the same spot when wounded, when sick, when scared out of his mind?Because a crossbow must be drawn to the nut and cannot be anywhere else it is going to be in it's proper place every single time. Minimizing the effects human error is a very significant advantage.

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.

[Gregstrom]

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

Well again I doubt a medieval bow made in medieval times could even approach something that quality wise to a modern one...

To assume that much relies on personal skill is to assume that those medieval longbows are essentially "perfect."

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.

There were guilds that attempted to do so certainly it's where we get the surname Fletcher from, but given that so many things can go wrong when creating arrows relative to modern times I am simply not seeing any real accuracy coming from there. And in terms of the need to crank them out in the sheer numbers required even if they could technically do so they wouldn't be able to. Also many of these arrows wouldn't survive in reusable condition if tested in a bow used for warfare.

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.

Well laid plans and training surviving combat in 100% percent capacity seem unlikely to me. Can a longbowman draw a bow back to the same spot when wounded, when sick, when scared out of his mind? Because a crossbow must be drawn to the nut and cannot be anywhere else it is going to be in it's proper place every single time. Minimizing the effects human error is a very significant advantage.

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.

Arrows have be balanced according to their bows. They have to be pulled the same way, every single time. You can't vary the pull as you claimed.

I have to agree. I haven't done much archery, but this agrees with what I have done. Besides, if you don't pull as hard on the bow then the arrow won't have as much kinetic energy behind it and won't be very effective.

Crossbows are not cheap. Where do people get the notions that they were cheap? You need bowmaking skills to make the bow part of the weapon. You need someone to fashion the trigger and the small mechanics. Someone to fashion a tiller. Someone to make the string. Someone to make the device to reload the weapon. And the person to put it together could be completely different.

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.

All medieval armies canvassed among their healthy citizens for soldiers and martial practice throughout their life was normal for multiple nations and so much of training is "free." This was the advantage of having troops bring their own weapons after all. When you have to start paying for them yourself is when the costs rise up.

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.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

@endoperez and rdonj: Ah I see. Well at least I know I wasn't completely crazy and imagined the whole thing with the cave people.

Well, you didn't imagine the part about the agarthans. The rest of it is dubious.

Generally, a nation that puts the most effective fighting force on the field at the cheapest cost wins. Of course there are all kinds of exceptions. But crossbows allowed a very cheap unit to kill very expensive units.

I'm guessing at the numbers - but crossbows were 80% as effective at 20% of the cost. With the primary cost here for longbowmen being a restricted pool of conscripts caused by the lengthy training time, and the difficulty in churning out bows.

Crossbows are not cheap. Where do people get the notions that they were cheap? You need bowmaking skills to make the bow part of the weapon. You need someone to fashion the trigger and the small mechanics. Someone to fashion a tiller. Someone to make the string. Someone to make the device to reload the weapon. And the person to put it together could be completely different. With a bow one dude can make a bow and that is often how it was done. Someone who could produce a complete crossbow on his own was very rare and needed more people. People who had to be organized and communicate to one another. The sheer complexity of construction and the number of folks needed to be *paid* shows that this idea is faulty.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

[Gandalf Parker]

I thought that the big difference between crossbow and longbow was range?
A crossbow tended to be frontline, you shot at big things close up, they hit with lots of force and the troop only needed to be able to hit the broad side of a barn (which happened to be charging him).
Longbows shot from far back, high arches, rained down upon the enemy. As the enemy drew closer they tended to shoot directly and needed to hit man sized targets.

Slings were just a non-magical shards spell. A rain of stones whose affects were less about damage and more about the raining down and minor wounds on morale. I handt considered the "hitting yourself on the head" thing. Yes slings might have fallen out of favor with the use of tight formations. The same timing and reasoning as quarterstaffs giving way to pikes, swinging swords giving way to stabbing ones, etc.