Alrowan
10-11-2002, 08:48
well we all know that throughout history the basic army consisted of a lot of conscripts. But there were the exception of elite armies. The most effective armies ever seen in old style warefare were heavy spear based armies, look at the greek phalanx, or the roman legions, both were mainly heavy infantry, with very few archers. Most people are led by the misconception that archers were very effective, the fact is THEY WERE'NT. So if archers were ineffective, then why were they used? well this is the simplest thing to answer, and that is FEAR. Most of the damage done by archers was injuring opponents, not killing them, and the few men that were killed in a volley of arrows were ones not hiding behind thier shields or generally unlucky. But the fear that was caused by a rain of arrows was horrendous, watching your fellow soldiers being maimed before they even entered the fray could demoralise entire forces.
When medieval warfare began, it started with one basic unit, and that was a shield wall. A uni of spearmen armed with javelins, who hunkered down, and held the line wit thier spears, when the enemy tried to break them, they would usually fail, and as they went to fall back javelins sometimes were thrown. Cavalry at this time was merely used to try out manouver, or just used to get to battle. and as for archers, they were used for hunting deer, or in the rare ambush. Already in the dark ages, the value of a unit of spears was high.
Moving into later warfare, technology for archery to get better was achieved with the composite bow, now arrows could be fired longer distances and with more power, this led to armies using archers to soften the enemy when they charged, to create holes in the line and such, but were never highly useful, until the longbows. This is not due to the weapons so much as thier owners. A welsh longbowmen was one of the most effective archers, trained from a young age. Thier ability to cause so much damage was one of two reasons, the technology of thier arrows (consisted of a nasty pyramid with barbs, as opposed to the flat arrowheads used by the other archers), this usually meant that the heavier arrows would kill more than they maimed.. the other reason was thier training, they cwere trained to fire arrows much faster than the average bowmen, thus being abel to inflict more damage. in the same ammount of time. Aprat from welsh longbowmen, archers were useless due to thier range, at short range they were effective, at long, weak. The reason why horse archers were any good was the ability to ride close and shoot thier arrows at a low arc, cause more damage.
you must remember that not all archers are robin hoods..
ok, moving onto crossbows, these weapons were always more effective than bows for two reasons, thier low arc, direct line of fire, and thier power, the ablity to shoot them straight meant greater acuracy, but be warned, these were rarely used in field combat, they were mainly there to kill heavily armoured knights in ambushes, hence on thier being banned by the church.
gunpoweder paved the way for new combat, its direct line of fire, and armour peircing abilities meant that it was more deadly, but it had a shorter range, and required time to reload (hence the use of alternating ranks of shooters)
all in all, you can now hopefully see that archers were quite useless in medieval times, so stop whining on how the gameplayers got it wrong, as they didnt, merely you have seen far too many movies. If you can show me a historical battle in which archers (not longbows) won the day, then i will change my opinion.
as for any game fixes that should be made for archers
1. increased kills when hitting a moving unit, less kills when the unit is stationary.
2. increased effectivness at a closer range
3. units taking casualties when not fighting hand to hand to get worried by the casualties easily.
4. archers should do more damage to units in combat.
ok, sure that henry was killed by archers in the battle of hastings, but overall they were not used overly much with the exception of longbows
When medieval warfare began, it started with one basic unit, and that was a shield wall. A uni of spearmen armed with javelins, who hunkered down, and held the line wit thier spears, when the enemy tried to break them, they would usually fail, and as they went to fall back javelins sometimes were thrown. Cavalry at this time was merely used to try out manouver, or just used to get to battle. and as for archers, they were used for hunting deer, or in the rare ambush. Already in the dark ages, the value of a unit of spears was high.
Moving into later warfare, technology for archery to get better was achieved with the composite bow, now arrows could be fired longer distances and with more power, this led to armies using archers to soften the enemy when they charged, to create holes in the line and such, but were never highly useful, until the longbows. This is not due to the weapons so much as thier owners. A welsh longbowmen was one of the most effective archers, trained from a young age. Thier ability to cause so much damage was one of two reasons, the technology of thier arrows (consisted of a nasty pyramid with barbs, as opposed to the flat arrowheads used by the other archers), this usually meant that the heavier arrows would kill more than they maimed.. the other reason was thier training, they cwere trained to fire arrows much faster than the average bowmen, thus being abel to inflict more damage. in the same ammount of time. Aprat from welsh longbowmen, archers were useless due to thier range, at short range they were effective, at long, weak. The reason why horse archers were any good was the ability to ride close and shoot thier arrows at a low arc, cause more damage.
you must remember that not all archers are robin hoods..
ok, moving onto crossbows, these weapons were always more effective than bows for two reasons, thier low arc, direct line of fire, and thier power, the ablity to shoot them straight meant greater acuracy, but be warned, these were rarely used in field combat, they were mainly there to kill heavily armoured knights in ambushes, hence on thier being banned by the church.
gunpoweder paved the way for new combat, its direct line of fire, and armour peircing abilities meant that it was more deadly, but it had a shorter range, and required time to reload (hence the use of alternating ranks of shooters)
all in all, you can now hopefully see that archers were quite useless in medieval times, so stop whining on how the gameplayers got it wrong, as they didnt, merely you have seen far too many movies. If you can show me a historical battle in which archers (not longbows) won the day, then i will change my opinion.
as for any game fixes that should be made for archers
1. increased kills when hitting a moving unit, less kills when the unit is stationary.
2. increased effectivness at a closer range
3. units taking casualties when not fighting hand to hand to get worried by the casualties easily.
4. archers should do more damage to units in combat.
ok, sure that henry was killed by archers in the battle of hastings, but overall they were not used overly much with the exception of longbows