Longbows are no good

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Originally Posted by Carl

My biggest reason for being a touch disbelieving of the test mentioned is the fact that the English DID use Longbows extensively prior to gunpowder, and apparently won often, yet the enemy would often have been wearing plate, so it has to have been useful against it or they would have switched to crossbows.

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Of course it's usefull against plate, but not the way you think. It did break through mail, but it never did "punch right through" plate, bodkin or no bodkin.

The crossbow had supplanted the bow in the first place because it surpassed it in practicality (easier to use, can be carried loaded) and most importantly range (except in the specific case of the longbow), even though it lost in firing rate. But when you can outshoot the enemy, and/or carry a pavise, speed doesn't really matter. Range is what it was all about, not killing power.

The advantage the longbow had over the crossbow wasn't in killing power either, but in sheer volume of fire. If you fire 10 arrows per minute, even if most of them are wasted you're statistically bound to hit something vulnerable overtime, like armor joints, helmet slits, horses and so on. Spray and pray, if you will.

The reason the English stuck to their longbows for so long was simply because *they* had men available who had trained enough in bowyery and who could handle bows huge enough that their range was roughly equal to that of the crossbow (a little more, a little less, it doesn't really matter), while firing faster. The other nations did not, nor did they care to train their folk for years and years when two weeks and a crossbow was good 'nuff.

But in any case, the reason why longbows garnered such fame for their efficacity in battle doesn't have anything to do with the weapon's qualities.
It is because the English pioneered the tactical use of missile troops as the battle winning, "kill" units.

The other western kingdoms considered missiles mainly as harrying tools (force the enemy to move), and siege tools (keep the enemy away from the walls, be he sieger or siegee). The knights were the "kill unit", both out of social structure and past experience. But the English had realized in their battles against the Scots that knights could be beaten by "clever rabble", in contradiction to prevalent assumption, and had the ingeniosity to turn to their own missile rabble as their main strength, in much bigger numbers than their enemies did.

It's not really that English longbowmen were superior to French crossbowmen : there were more of them, and they were used in a completely different tactical role.

Going back to the longbow vs crossbow debate itself, I think things are modelled accurately in the game :

- terrain and situation aside, crossbows will beat regular archers because they can get a couple solid volleys in before the archers can even get in range, and if you micromanage your Xbows, archers won't even have a chance to fire. But longbows will destroy un-pavised crossbows through their rate of fire.

- Longbows are better than crossbows, pavise or not, at killing things in a timely fashion. Crossbows will kill just as many soldiers as longbows in the end, but it will take them much, much more time - kill about as many with each volley, much slower volleys. More volleys shot in a "tired" state too. XBows are perhaps firing a little bit too fast, I'll grant you that. And then again, that's iffy.

- And pavise win archer duels because that what pavises were about in the first place. Ride those jokers down, see how they like them apples.

Correct me if im wrong, but isent the reason why "use fire" is avalible to arches and xbows is to make them more versitile and able to kill armor and conserve ammo for archery duels and seiges and fighting armoed/pavise units?

I think what made the longbow a significant part of how we see medieval english armies today is not necessarily the quality of the bow, but the quantity. Archery training was as common as fast food in medieval england, and sunday was even a day dedicated to nothing but longbow training?

Side note- On the ringmail, the rings worked really well at stopping a slashing sword attack, but the rings were prone to not necessarily break apart, but part when something pierced instead of slashed. So against a sword cut, the ringmail was effective, but against a bodkin arrow? Not at all.


I think the solution for the English is to increase ROF for longbows. If you take it in a historical sense, a large portion of the english population were trained as opposed to able. In a game mechanics sense, the English are the retarded cousins of the French, who have everything the english have and then a whole bunch more (like an effective crossbow unit, better cannon selection, better cavalry, and better spear infantry, a good pike unit, and Scot's guards which are retinue longbowmen with armor plating... Not to mention horse archers.)

If English bowmen had a higher rate of fire, then an english army that was primarily made up of bowmen (which seems historically accurate) would give a french army a run for their money. This is what england needs in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by SMZ

I'd call that the worst type of mishap. Once again, just like you can protect powder from getting wet, oil your sword and sand your armor... if you had a composite bow in a damp area - you could prevent it from falling apart, as long as you took care of it. If they knew how to make the things, and had the materials, they would've.

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Like Kraxis said, it's not just rain - it's atmosphere. The glues behaved differently in colder and damper climates just by *being there*. The problem is not really the thing falling apart overtime, but one piece of the complex composite "machine" not behaving correctly, changing physical properties which were essential to its working properly.
Rust you can whitle away, it's still hard steel underneath. If a steel sword melted in the desert heat, you'd have a decent analogy there.

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lol... being killed with something does not translate into knowing how to make it. The U.S. had fun blowing up Afghanistan with the aid of "smart bombs".... why doesn't Afghanistan just build it's own?

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The Magyars/Hungarians weren't killing Italians/Germans/French were they ? Nor were western cultures always at war with cultures which used composite bows either - prior to the Fourth Crusade they had good relations with Byzantium for example. The Venetians traded a fair bit with Eastern people too, and so on...

Besides, that example is just plain silly. When you kill a Hun, his bow doesn't explode does it ? And it's not exactly a product of cutting edge rocket science either. Over-time, everybody around the med started to copy Roman tech found on dead Romans, everybody learnt stuff from the foes they fought, why would composite bows be any different ?
Composite tech has litteraly been around since the dawn of times. It's absurd to think it was any kind of big, closely kept secret...

3mm on the helmet, 2mm breastplate and 1mm everywhere else doesn't sound awful, in fact it's a little thin. You are maximising the armor on the surfaces that receive the incoming fire, which is really sensible and similar to how tank (and battleship) armor is distributed today. In fact, replica battle armor is often 1mm thicker on average, and tourney armor is unbelievably thick at around 4-5mm. Armor like that would weigh around 40-60lbs, considerably less than what a modern paratrooper would carry into battle. Furthermore, penetration alone is not a true gauge of a weapon's effectiveness. Even though the thinner breastplate was pierced a fair number of times (about 50%), the arrow did not penetrate deeply enough to cause a lethal or even disabling strike.

Placing a 3mm steel plate bought from a hardware shop and shooting stuff at it at 90-degree angles doesn't really test the bow's power. Your angle of impact is perfect and the flat plate does not offer the glancing surface that true armor would provide, which increases the effective thickness of the armor manifold.

The bow used was a replica based on weapons recovered from the Mary Rose, fired by some bloke borrowed from the Yeomanry and thus a little bit more skillful than the average college professor with his 30lb hunting bow. I do not recall the exact poundage, but I think it was 90lb-110lbs. A respectable test weapon, considering that there is some debate over the poundage of the Mary Rose bows and how representative they were of English longbows. Your 150-160lbs is a little generous, since most estimates range from 90 to 160lbs. This fascination with the uber longbowman who was able to draw 200lb bows sounds to be yet another manifestation of the "those were real men" attitude. Despite being a professional mercenary soldier (which in those days usually meant he was a criminal or a never-do-well, hardly the sort of material to produce uniformly elite soldiers) suffering from malnutrition and inadequate healthcare, the longbowman is still regularly depicted as handling bows too powerful for champion Olympic shooters, rigorously selected, well-fed and honed to athletic perfection, to even draw, and scoring hits on individual targets at three times the range.

I actually wonder if pavise's shield bonus is applied differently from other unitsl (front/left hand side) while they are engaging in melee or just standing around and laughing at incoming arrows.

If you dig into the history books on longbows/crossbows...it is clear that there is some inbalance in the game.

The main advantage of the longbow was it's fast rate of fire..and range. Remember we are firing at massed units...showering arrows on an enemy with fast rate of fire will work..and did work. With regards plate armour...well not all plate is equal..apart from that there are areas not covered with plate..so a longbow whilst less effective than the crossbow...would do damage..in numbers. Agincourt proved this.

It is also incorrect to suggest that the English abandoned the crossbow 100%...they did not. Due to the heavy norman influence in warfare...in this period it is most certain that both units were fielded...in numbers..though with a preference for the trained longbowmen, after the welsh invasion (pembroke etc)

The plus for the crossbow is sheer power..able to penetrate armour..even good quality plate..with the disadvantage of a much slower rate of fire...and less range than the longbow.

Back to the game...well longbows rate of fire doesnt reflect what was reality..by some margin...some suggest that a rate of fire from 15-20 volleys a minute..is reasonable. Remember these were highly trained soldiers...specific skills in bowmanship.

A normal crossbow rate of fire would be 3/4 volleys a minute...with teams for reloading (as used by Richard the Lionheart) ROF could be double that...but still outclassed by the longbow.

Damage wise the crossbow is champ..
Range ROF wise Longbow has the edge

Some balancing needs to be done here...

Knights may have been well protected, protected to such an extent that being killed by an arrow was more down to the archers luck than a certainty. What is often overlooked is that the majority of soldiers were not knights, and were not protected to the same degree.

A feudal Levy dictated that a knight answer a call to battle and bring along a certain number of men at arms. these soldiers were maintained at his expense and were always availiable. since a suit of good quality plate armour was very expensive, he would equip his men either with older armour, or with armour of a lesser quality.

so in battle, a unit of 'knights' on foot or horseback, would have been made up of a number of well armoured knights, and their more numerous, and not so well armoured men at arms. Arrows were far more likely to kill the men at arms than the knights, which is why so many knights were captured by the english, the men at arms generally had arrows sticking out of them.

as to the claim that longbows are no good IG. well i feel i must disagree, i am of the oppinion that one should maximise your strengths, and the english ability to field longbows is one of them, so instead of having a fairly conventional 3-4 units of them, i take 10-12. in that quantity they are quite, quite lethal, certainly lethal enough that my fairly outnumbered heavy infantry can adequately deal with any enemy that get through, and they have the added advantage that you can make your battle line fairly horse proof

regards

Wouldn't the trajectory play a role here?

Nah longbows are not good in the game...reasons being..

Range is not long enough
Rate of fire is too slow (not at all like they were)
No. of arrows/ammo is too low...least 50+ is needed (for al bowmen)

Even taking into account the problems in the game..and of course less effective against plate armour..(compare to crossbows)..

Simply put you were getting shots in and much more of them...well before the enemy can wield his crossbows normal archers to bear on your forces. That is why...and the only reason why they worked so well.

Not to suggest crossbows are useless...far from it...you simply need to engage faster..and if we look at why crossbowmen became armoured..well the reason is above.

Needs fixing

The main advantage of a composite bow is that the use of tendons and bone means you can have a lighter bow compared to a selfbow of equal draw weight. It also means a shorter bow which is easier to use on horse back.

A lighter bow means an arrow will be sent off at a higher velocity, as it represents a higher proportion of the combined arrow/bow limbs/string weight that are all moving forward when letting it loose.

Fast arrows are great for horse archers shooting at other horse archers racing back and forth at shorter ranges. The faster the arrow the easier it is to hit a moving target.

But overall a self bow and a composite bow is near identical when it comes to potiential power: a 100 pound composite drawn to the ear would be the same a 100 pound longbow also drawn to the ear. The longbowman would just need a heavier arrow to get the same power: say 70 grams compared to 40 grams for the compostite bow.

The lighter arrow would have better max range because of its higher velocity but also have lesser power at that range (lighter arrow means worse ballistic coefficient) and long range shooting in general doesnt do much anyway.

IIRC some Italian city states had composite bows in their navies in late 15th century, of course along with arquebus and crossbows. The construction was certainly not a secret to European countries as they afterall used composite crossbows. But as a weapon for the masses there was not much point in having composite bows as they were more expensive and didnt give any significant advantages for a foot archer.

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Originally Posted by SMZ

You don't need special physics. Normal ones will suffice.

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When shooting at max range you need an angle of about 45 degrees. When the missile has reached halfway(actually bit more than that) it has reached its maximum height and will start falling down. It doesnt do that because it has expended all its energy, but because gravitational acceleration has picked up enough speed to counter the missile's upward speed. When it finally reaches its target only a small part of its velocity has come from gravity.

Arrows might be more slender than a bolt but there are few more elements to consider. Sectional density (total mass/frontal area) is important. The shape and fletchings produces drag too. A crossbow bolt is AFAIK considered to have a better ballistic coefficient than arrows but I think they are still very close to each other.

The heavier crossbows had a higher max range than longbows anyway: tests with a 150 pound longbow using a 86 gram heavy bodkin arrow gave a max range of about 250-260 yards. A 1200 pound crossbow with a bolt of similar weight had a range of about 450 yards. Another crossbow of perhaps 800 pounds had a max range of 380 yards. A more ordinary crossbow, using belt and hook to load, would perhaps be 3-400 pounds and I guess a range of 250-300 yards yards would not be too far off. Lighter flight arrows from that longbow would of course produce better max ranges of 350-400 yards but the lighter they are the less energy(penetration) they have


CBR

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Originally Posted by dopp

While longbowmen were mostly experienced soldiers, crossbowmen also boasted elite mercenary bands. Why would they be any worse? If the crossbow was easier to learn to fire, they might even be better. There would certainly be more of them. Mastery of a more difficult weapon does not automatically make you a better warrior than those who master easier weapons. It would depend on the potential effectiveness of the weapons in question. If your chosen weapon is merely on par or inferior to easier weapons, you might even be a bit of a retard to have wasted all your time on it...

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The problem is that history is against your analysis. English longbowmen consistently shot up the mercenary xbowmen hired by the French. The longbow had a higher rate of fire that the xbowmen just could not match.

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Originally Posted by Mega Dux Bob

As for being the uber weapon of doom the later battles in the 100 years war make it very clear that if the longbowmen couldn't set their stakes they were meat on the table for the French mounted men-at-arms. At one battle (Vernuil, I think) the French had hired Italian mercenaries in the latest plate armor and the longbow was absolutely useless against it. That is retinue longbows verses gothic knights in game terms.

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According to wiki the only thing the Italian knights charged was the English baggage train. Not much of a contest there, I think. From what I've read, the French were only able to defeat the English bowmen if they could get at them while they were unprepared - they did defeat them in a couple of battles when they caught them wrongfooted. But if they were set up and staked out, the French usually failed.

Basic tactics would say that ANY force in a strong defensive formation, set up and staked out, would have an advantage, all things being equal. It only proves that the English were able to get the French to attack them more often, not that the English archers were especially invincible. They may well have been, but their success in fixed positions alone does not prove it.

The problem is that history is against your analysis as well, since there are only a handful of battles where the English shot up crossbowmen. Crecy, where the Genoese had left their pavises behind and got run over halfway by impatient knights, is the only notable example, and not a very good one at that. At other battles, such as Agincourt, the crossbowmen never got to fire at all. It was the English being on the defensive that gave them the advantage in those battles. The crossbowmen were thrown forward hastily to "prepare" the way for a cavalry or infantry attack with a few brief volleys of bolts, found themselves fighting an archery duel for which they were unprepared (having left their pavises behind), and run over or pushed aside by the "real" fighting men who wanted to get on with things. Things would have been more even if both sides had come intending to fight an archery duel. Yes, I know that crossbows fire slower than longbows, even with separate loaders. That's why you pay someone to carry a big wooden board in front of you or wear it on your back. It doesn't matter how fast the other guy can fire or how accurately (shoot really, you can only 'fire' a gun) if he only hits your shield. Unless you believe that bodkins pierce thick pavises too?

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if longbowmen also used pavises too when facing enemy archers. In their case it would be held by someone else and raised to cover them when the enemy volley arrived (you can see it coming). The OP's issue was that pavise crossbowmen are protected against longbowmen but not vice versa, which is why longbows are at a disadvantage in archery duels. But making them more uber as a means of overcoming just one type of unit unbalances them against everyone else. Maybe the English need to bring Pavise Crossbowmen too to "tank" the hits while the rest of the longbows DPS. After all, the pavise in M2TW is not completely immune to arrow fire like it should have been IRL.

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But as a weapon for the masses there was not much point in having composite bows as they were more expensive and didnt give any significant advantages for a foot archer.

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Considering you just listed greater range, faster rate of fire as well as lighter and less cumbersome weapon... it seems rather odd to conclude by saying that there were no significant advantages.

A 9 foot spear may be "only" 1 foot longer than an 8 foot spear... but to the two guys trying to poke one another with them, I'm pretty sure they'll consider that difference a little more important than an item of academic debate.

I dont buy most of the opinions of the forum about the impotence of the Longbow.If it were true then the French armies must have been truly inept if on home soil with numerical advantage they couldnt,for the most part,defeat the primarily longbow dominated armies of the English during the early period of the hundred years war.
The simple fact is the longbow was a battle winning weapon for the English and one that changed the face of the traditional medieval battlefield forever.No longer were armoured knights the kings of the battlefield.

If the Longbow was as overated as some suggest then why:

Were they so sought after as mercenaries?

Why were the French prepared to cede one third of their territory to the English rather than face them in a large scale battle such as Crecy?

Why did the French King alter his tactics at the battle of Mauron and fight dismounted in three large colums?

Why did the numerically stronger French army allow the English to march with sight of Paris without engaging them? Wise it has to be said but much to the disgust of it's inhabitants.

Why did the French king allow hundreds of his people to starve to death,inside and out of the city,at the siege of Calais despite having marched to relieve them? Presumably they could have just waded in and slaughtered the overated and impotent longbowmen drawn up out side the city.

The list goes on and on and i havent even mentioned the psychological effects of being under a storm of arrows.I didn't think that would bother them as they would have all being wearing the highest quality platemail that everyone seems to think was so commonplace on the medieval battlefield at that time.

As for Agincourt,saying that adverse weather conditions,muddy fields etc etc etc were the sole reasons for the defeat is a bit like the French saying they lost at Waterloo because Napoleon had piles...No wait,hang on a sec,they did say that !!

Back on topic.....The fact that even regular crossbowmen can compete with quality longbowmen in game shows me that some balancing needs to be done.I'm all for nerfing the longbow in favour of game balance but please don't confuse that with reality.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

The crossbow had supplanted the bow in the first place because it surpassed it in practicality (easier to use, can be carried loaded) and most importantly range (except in the specific case of the longbow), even though it lost in firing rate. But when you can outshoot the enemy, and/or carry a pavise, speed doesn't really matter. Range is what it was all about, not killing power.

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Firearms supplanted the longbow and other ranged weapons due to practicality but it dosent mean they were better weapons.The British Baker rifle used in the Peninsular war outranged the musket.The Musket had more killing power due to their numbers and volley fire when in optimun range.Killing power is what it's about at the end of the day.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2Fr

The advantage the longbow had over the crossbow wasn't in killing power either, but in sheer volume of fire.Spray and pray, if you will.

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Do you imagine an arrowshaft would do any less damage to a man than a crossbow bolt? The ability to kill a man as well as do it faster = more killing power to me.Your 'spray and pray' quote is just ignorant.Longbowmen were extremely accomplished archers in their own right.Against densely packed targets there was no need to pick individual targets though they were more than capable of doing so.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2Fr

The reason the English stuck to their longbows for so long was simply because *they* had men available who had trained enough in bowyery and who could handle bows huge enough that their range was roughly equal to that of the crossbow.The other nations did not, nor did they care to train their folk for years and years when two weeks and a crossbow was good 'nuff.

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They may also have stuck to them as they were hugely successful.:inquisitive: The reason the other Western European nations did not follow the English in fielding large numbers of quality bowmen is simply because they couldn't.As you say it took years to master the longbow,not to mention the physical strength needed to use one.No other country in this region had that capacity.It was purely a phenomonon taken up in many counties in England and Wales,the majority as a sport,that led to a ready supply of skilled archers for use by English kings.Your quote on the Crossbow being good e'nuff certainly dosent stand.It certainly wasn't good e'nuff for Captain Grimaldi at Agincourt who was in command of several thousand crossbowmen who were sent reeling back down the hill with horrendous losses.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2Fr

But in any case, the reason why longbows garnered such fame for their efficacity in battle doesn't have anything to do with the weapon's qualities.
It is because the English pioneered the tactical use of missile troops as the battle winning.

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I'll agree with your second point but it was purely down to the weapons qualities.Ridiculous to say otherwise.If the English had used the tactics you describe but with crossbows they wouldnt have been half as successful so therefore the weapon played a huge part.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2Fr

The other western kingdoms considered missiles mainly as harrying tools (force the enemy to move), and siege tools (keep the enemy away from the walls, be he sieger or siegee). The knights were the "kill unit", both out of social structure and past experience. But the English had realized in their battles against the Scots that knights could be beaten by "clever rabble", in contradiction to prevalent assumption, and had the ingeniosity to turn to their own missile rabble as their main strength, in much bigger numbers than their enemies did.

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I assume when you say 'clever rabble' you are refering to the highly skilled and highly disciplined men who formed the backbone of the army? The Yeoman who already had an important role in society and who were recruited on their own terms of pay rather than by being pressed in?

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Originally Posted by Kobal2Fr

It's not really that English longbowmen were superior to French crossbowmen : there were more of them, and they were used in a completely different tactical role.

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Laughable.The English at Crecy,cut the Genoese to ribbons,who were the masters of the crossbow never mind the French.The Longbowmen were superior in every way,training,discipline,experience etc etc etc.Also because they were much more respected as soldiers by their commanders they could act on their own initiative without direct orders.I Have no doubt that the French soldiers could have been very formidable had their commanders seen their true worth rather than viewing them as second class citizens.The Longbowmen were much more valued than their French counterparts.


As a sidenote,Pavise crossbowmen's main function was to encroach upon entrenched defenders,such as ones defending walls,and pick them off from behind their shields.They were in no way created as an out and out counter to archers on a large battlefield.If the French king had listened to Grimaldi's pleas before being uncerimoniously sent to certain death up the hill at Crecy maybe things would have been different.

Hmm, CaptainSolo, why were the English kicked out of France, leaving them only with Calais after 1453, when they had the uber-longbow arms ready? Why were they reduced to small parts of France during du Guesclins war after 1360? Why were they defeated in the Battle of Bannockburn which saved Scotlands independence for several hundreds of years? Such arguments are not very convincing.

It is very difficult to count a victory in battle to a special weapon. When you read about Crecy, Poitiers or Agincourt you see that a lot of fighting took place at close quarters. So the men-at-arms took the brunt of the attack and fought it out in good defensive positions.


What dopp told about performance of arrows against plate I can confirm. We tested it with a 500 lbs crossbow and an 80 lbs bow. Later tests were also made with a 750 lbs crossbow. All were bad performers.

Tests were made from 20 m distance. Below that distance the arrow has not stopped its initial bending and is not able to get reliable penetration power.

Crossbow and bow were relatively weak (although most modern people including me wouldn't be able to shoot with an 80 lbs bow :laugh4: ). But: penetration power doesn't grow with the power of the crossbow/bow in a direct relation. A 160 lbs bow gives not double power and energy to an arrow compared with an 80 lbs bow. And the stronger the draw power the greater other disadvantages for the user of the weapon (speed, burden etc.)

The actual draw power of English bows is a matter of debate. Mostly it seems to be estimated to be in a normal range from 80 lbs to 120 lbs. 160 lbs would be awful to shoot. One argument in the late 16th century debate in England about the abandoning of bows as weapons was that performance of archers under the conditons of war (exhaustion, hunger, disease etc.) was not very impressive and decreased much faster than that of arquebusiers.

The most impressive experiences from testing for me were: First how easily an arrow or bolt was deflected by plate armour. Only if it hits near 90 degree there was even a chance to punch a hole. Second that neither arrows nor bolts could punch through a gambeson made of over 20 layers of linen cloth. That form of armour was frequently used among the more simple soldiers and may have done a very good job against missiles.

I think people are getting way off topic....

As for the English in france..well we know the story there....fact is England had lots of interests going on at that time...and a lot of armies and lands being occupied....you can only stretch forces so far...but..back to reality.


IMO the longbow isnt represented properly in the game..at the moment...up to people themselves how they feel about it!

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Originally Posted by SMZ

Considering you just listed greater range, faster rate of fire as well as lighter and less cumbersome weapon... it seems rather odd to conclude by saying that there were no significant advantages.

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There is no greater rate of fire, where did I write that? Greater range when using comparably lighter arrows that also has less kinetic energy at max range. It's not important for a foot archer if a bow has a length of 4 or 6 feet.

AFAIK Arab manuals from the 15th/16th century put 160 yards as the max effective range. Sure they could shoot longer but the chance to hit anything is considerably reduced as well as having less power. Shooting at max is just harrasment, the real killing power is at a much shorter range.

Your example with a longer spear is flawed as there is no difference in chance to hit nor in power.

IIRC The French king at one point even employed a "Saracen" for building composite crossbows. We can only conclude that the knowledge and materials certainly where available but the added cost for bows just wasnt worth it. The extra cost for more powerful crossbows was worth it and they used it.


CBR

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Originally Posted by CaptainSolo

They may also have stuck to them as they were hugely successful.:inquisitive: The reason the other Western European nations did not follow the English in fielding large numbers of quality bowmen is simply because they couldn't.As you say it took years to master the longbow,not to mention the physical strength needed to use one.No other country in this region had that capacity.It was purely a phenomonon taken up in many counties in England and Wales,the majority as a sport,that led to a ready supply of skilled archers for use by English kings.Your quote on the Crossbow being good e'nuff certainly dosent stand.It certainly wasn't good e'nuff for Captain Grimaldi at Agincourt who was in command of several thousand crossbowmen who were sent reeling back down the hill with horrendous losses.

Laughable.The English at Crecy,cut the Genoese to ribbons,who were the masters of the crossbow never mind the French.The Longbowmen were superior in every way,training,discipline,experience etc etc etc.Also because they were much more respected as soldiers by their commanders they could act on their own initiative without direct orders.I Have no doubt that the French soldiers could have been very formidable had their commanders seen their true worth rather than viewing them as second class citizens.The Longbowmen were much more valued than their French counterparts.

As a sidenote,Pavise crossbowmen's main function was to encroach upon entrenched defenders,such as ones defending walls,and pick them off from behind their shields.They were in no way created as an out and out counter to archers on a large battlefield.If the French king had listened to Grimaldi's pleas before being uncerimoniously sent to certain death up the hill at Crecy maybe things would have been different.

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Now just to clarify, was Grimaldi at Agincourt or at Crecy? There's the matter of about a century or so between the two battles. There is also the little matter of the Genoese lacking some essential equipment (pavises) and not intending to have a missile duel in the first place, so the Crecy example isn't good enough either.

Of course the crossbow and the longbow are not the same weapon using different mechanisms. They have different characteristics and properties. The crossbow is a powerful weapon but takes longer to load. Nobody disputes that. How much longer to load is perhaps a little iffy, since you could have someone else load one crossbow for you while you fired the other, and since volley fire would have reduced the practical (as opposed to theoretical) rate of fire possible with the longbow. Regardless, crossbowmen, being sensible people, would account for the weakness in their rate of fire by bringing something thick enough to shelter behind while they reloaded. It's playing to the strengths of your equipment. Thus protected, they would have largely nullified the strengths of their longbow opponents. Pavises would be no more bulky a piece of battlefield equipment for stationary missile troops as defensive stakes, in fact the Persian archers used them extensively centuries before. Battlefield fortification of all sorts was common (war wagons anyone?) and not limited to sieges, nor to crossbowmen alone. The Genoese at Crecy fought without their pavises and got routed. This does not make them inferior troops, because they lacked an essential piece of equipment. You could not conclude that Italian riflemen are inferior to Ethiopian warriors just because they were issued the wrong ammunition for their weapons on one occasion and beaten to death in melee.

I'm pretty sure that longbows were effective weapons. Large, powerful bows like that, wielded by superior, professional soldiers, used in way that complemented their strengths and covered their weaknesses. So were a lot of other weapons. Maybe even crossbows. Maybe even muskets. Powerful weapons, wielded by professionals and played to their own particular strengths. I can see how the pavise deal is a problem in archery duels, mainly because the longbows don't have that option themselves. But the pavise armor bonus ingame can still be pierced easily by longbows with their AP, so the crossbows only have a minor advantage compared to what they might have IRL if they had pavises and the longbows didn't. The longbowmen get a unique ability to plant stakes, something that every unit should be able to do (the Flemish dug holes around their pike formations to channel the attacking knights at their weapons) but only they can ingame. They get indirect fire in a rather improbable way (who's spotting for them?), whereas the crossbows firing in an arc is a bug that kills nothing. They can fight knights in melee with AP weapons. Their rate of fire is twice that of crossbows and four times that of muskets, a high-end troop that requires 15 more turns and 27k more florins to produce than retinue bowmen. They are quite uber.

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The heavier crossbows had a higher max range than longbows anyway: tests with a 150 pound longbow using a 86 gram heavy bodkin arrow gave a max range of about 250-260 yards. A 1200 pound crossbow with a bolt of similar weight had a range of about 450 yards. Another crossbow of perhaps 800 pounds had a max range of 380 yards. A more ordinary crossbow, using belt and hook to load, would perhaps be 3-400 pounds and I guess a range of 250-300 yards yards would not be too far off. Lighter flight arrows from that longbow would of course produce better max ranges of 350-400 yards but the lighter they are the less energy(penetration) they have

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This sounds really odd, not because a crossbow bolt of the same weight is reaching a greater range than a Longbow arrow, if it was as heavy, or heavier it would reach greater distances. What stands out as odd is the idea that crossbow bolts where as heavy. They where much shorter and much thinner than a Longbow arrow, that alone tells us they should be lighter. At which point that entire comparison goes out the window.

Of course they could have used a solid metal quarrel, but I’m 80% sure that wasn't the norm through much of history anyway so it's not really a viable comparison in that case.

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Placing a 3mm steel plate bought from a hardware shop and shooting stuff at it at 90-degree angles doesn't really test the bow's power. Your angle of impact is perfect and the flat plate does not offer the glancing surface that true armor would provide, which increases the effective thickness of the armor manifold.

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Well the test isn't remotely fair anyway as plate armour steel would have been of lower quality anyway, so in affect that 3mm modern steel plate is rather too strong to be representative anyway.

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Arrows might be more slender than a bolt but there are few more elements to consider. Sectional density (total mass/frontal area) is important. The shape and fletchings produces drag too. A crossbow bolt is AFAIK considered to have a better ballistic coefficient than arrows but I think they are still very close to each other.

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Indeed that’s true, the Quarrel would have much less drag, but as noted really should be a lot lighter than a Longbow Arrow which cuts it's power significantly.

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But overall a self bow and a composite bow is near identical when it comes to potiential power: a 100 pound composite drawn to the ear would be the same a 100 pound longbow also drawn to the ear. The longbowman would just need a heavier arrow to get the same power: say 70 grams compared to 40 grams for the compostite bow.

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Not just the faster movement, whenever a Bow fires an arrow, some of the force your exerting to pull the bow back is actually used up in trying to stretch the string, a shorter height bow, (and especially recurve bows), put less energy into doing this anyway, so they get better velocity out of their arrows.

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Hmm, CaptainSolo, why were the English kicked out of France, leaving them only with Calais after 1453, when they had the uber-longbow arms ready? Why were they reduced to small parts of France during du Guesclins war after 1360? Why were they defeated in the Battle of Bannockburn which saved Scotlands independence for several hundreds of years? Such arguments are not very convincing.

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This ones easy: Joan of Arc, she gave the French a nearly unshakable morale. And history often teaches you one thing, an army that will fight a longer and harder than their opponents tends to win. It doesn’t matter if your a bit better, (a LOT better would mind), than your opponents, if the enemy just won't back down they can win through sheer determination.

Also this quote adds some extra stuff:

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As for the English in france..well we know the story there....fact is England had lots of interests going on at that time...and a lot of armies and lands being occupied....you can only stretch forces so far...but..back to reality.

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Whilst I don't agree with everything CaptainSolo had to say, he raises the basic point, Longbow HAD to be SIGNIFICANTLY better than crossbows in the way the English used them, or they would have switched to Crossbows as they don't require the lifetime training.

Threads like this amuse me highly, so many armchair historians have put forward all kinds of theories, so many tests have been carried out. How many of them were actually present at battles like Agincourt? The best they can do is guess.
I have read accounts over the years and the Longbow has been reduced from a weapon of mass destruction to a mere annoyance.
The Asiatic Composite falls apart in damp weather.......LOL!!! It's hilarious. The Huns never saw rain then? How on earth did Chingis and Jamuka manage when they met in a snowstorm?
Who are these people who claim these things?
Speak to Hungarian bowyer Csaba Grozer, I have. Ask him about his composite bows and rain, I have.
All but torrential rain is fine.(and torrential rain only spoils the finish)

Bodkins.
Why were these heads used when they did nothing? More precisely, why did the bodkin evolve from the needle bodkin that could pierce and cut through chainmail into the short bodkin? What do we hear from armchair historians? "Only effective at 60 metres or less.
Kassai Lajos was able to pierce a military helmet with the technology available to the Huns.
What was the standard of plate armour? Were all Knights and Men-at-Arms covered completely with 'top of the range' armour? Was every part of the body totally enclosed?

.......Orda

@Orda Khan: That more or less my stance on it, I’ll argue the Science behind it for the fun of it. But in the end these weapons where used and battles where won and lost on their effectiveness. Thus, they had to be workable effective weapons that did their job regardless of anything else. The rest is just interesting details for us to tire ourselves out arguing over:bounce:.

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Originally Posted by geala

Hmm, CaptainSolo, why were the English kicked out of France, leaving them only with Calais after 1453, when they had the uber-longbow arms ready? Why were they reduced to small parts of France during du Guesclins war after 1360? Why were they defeated in the Battle of Bannockburn which saved Scotlands independence for several hundreds of years? Such arguments are not very convincing.

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I'm talking about the impact the Longbow had in the early battles of the 100 years war and the English armies undoubted superiority over the French at that time.What your'e asking is why the English were eventually driven out of France,as in the campaign as a whole.There are many reasons and situations that led that to occur though i'm not going to write huge passages on that here but it certainly wasn't because the Longbow became a bad wepon overnight.
The Germans appreciation of the tank and Blitzkrieg was an undoubdedly massive factor in Germany's conquests in the early part of the second world war against opponents who were no where near as forward thinking,disciplined or as well led as the Germans.Why then were they eventually defeated when they still had it? Things change and a myriad of other factors led to their eventual defeat but it dosent alter the fact that it was a battle winning weapon and strategy at that time.Credit where it's due.
Bannockburn was a terrible defeat for the English but Edwards generalship was insane and thats being polite.The Scots under Bruce realised in the bedlam that was the forming English army that this was one chance where his pikemen could dominate proceedings and they did so admirably.Credit where it's due.
In every other situation against the Scots where the English applied the tactics tried at Falkirk then they were victorious.Look at the battle of Nevilles cross,near my home as it happens.

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Originally Posted by Geala

It is very difficult to count a victory in battle to a special weapon. When you read about Crecy, Poitiers or Agincourt you see that a lot of fighting took place at close quarters. So the men-at-arms took the brunt of the attack and fought it out in good defensive positions.

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Absolutely they did,but that of course was by design,hence they always fought dismounted.When you look at the composition of the English armies the vast majority were made up of longbowmen.The first French cavalry charge at Crecy was further disordered by warbow fire and had taken many casualties by the time they eventually closed with the English,with no forward momentum they were easily surrounded and driven off with heavy loss by the Men at arms.The second conroi was much better assembled but were again hampered by longbow fire and the obstacle of the remnants of the previous charge.The men at arms weren't responsible for driving off Grimaldi's Genoese either.
The fact that Philip,arguably the most powerful Western European Monarch,had in effect lost an entire army at this engagement should tell you something.A conservative estimate of 10,000 casualties in such a short space of time which was a huge amount for the time and type of battle would lead me to deduce that the Longbow was more effective than you give it credit for.

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Originally Posted by Geala

What dopp told about performance of arrows against plate I can confirm. We tested it with a 500 lbs crossbow and an 80 lbs bow. Later tests were also made with a 750 lbs crossbow. All were bad performers.

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I have no complaints with that but check the casualty figures above.It would seem obvious to me that there would have been very few who would have worn such armour.In the case of mounted armoured Knights the chain trappers over the chargers would not have been impervious to arrow fire.

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Originally Posted by Geala

The actual draw power of English bows is a matter of debate. Mostly it seems to be estimated to be in a normal range from 80 lbs to 120 lbs. 160 lbs would be awful to shoot. One argument in the late 16th century debate in England about the abandoning of bows as weapons was that performance of archers under the conditons of war (exhaustion, hunger, disease etc.) was not very impressive and decreased much faster than that of arquebusiers.

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Well of course there would be a variation.The Longbow wasn't a government issued weapon.It was nearly always made by the user to his own preference and liking and would have been used in everyday life for many.That is why there are no surviving examples today.They were simply a tool for the people who used them.
The main reason that the longbow faded from use in the English army was purely down to the fact that as a sport/pastime it was no longer followed in sufficient numbers for it to be effective.
An elite company of archers would have easily defeated a company of Wellington's best line troops in a 1 on 1 situation,of that there is no doubt.The longbow faded despite gunpowder weapons not because of it.


I'm a big history fan as are many others on here and as such i'am interested in the facts.You must give credit to the French for recovering when at many times all seemed lost.By the same token credit must be given to the Longbow because it's achievements were indeed great.

/em yawns

Frankly its all rather boring blather from people using google as their primary historical research tool whilst claiming some intimate and highly personalised version of historical facts that they actually dont have a clue about whatsoever. (And most of it is little more than broad sweeping statements infused with modern prejudices and hollywoodisms)

The ISSUE remains one of balancing a set of units in the game.

And in that respect the only pertinent information we require is how we believe the unit should perform IN THE GAME.

All the rest of the tosh about invincible pavise-men and their shields of doom, uber forearms-of-schwarzenegger english archers and so forth is just hot air and rather irrelevant.

It's also very boring as its a clone of 10,000 other identical threads elsewhere.

If all the armchair experts stopped blowing up hot air balloons and stopped to look at the game issue instead, you might get somewhere.

e.g. Should longbows have a higher rate of fire than any other bow unit IN THE FRIKKIN GAME? yes/no

Make a short list and get over trying to prove everybody else is an idiot and you a genius.

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

Threads like this amuse me highly, so many armchair historians have put forward all kinds of theories, so many tests have been carried out. How many of them were actually present at battles like Agincourt? The best they can do is guess.
I have read accounts over the years and the Longbow has been reduced from a weapon of mass destruction to a mere annoyance.
The Asiatic Composite falls apart in damp weather.......LOL!!! It's hilarious. The Huns never saw rain then? How on earth did Chingis and Jamuka manage when they met in a snowstorm?
Who are these people who claim these things?
Speak to Hungarian bowyer Csaba Grozer, I have. Ask him about his composite bows and rain, I have.
All but torrential rain is fine.(and torrential rain only spoils the finish)

Bodkins.
Why were these heads used when they did nothing? More precisely, why did the bodkin evolve from the needle bodkin that could pierce and cut through chainmail into the short bodkin? What do we hear from armchair historians? "Only effective at 60 metres or less.
Kassai Lajos was able to pierce a military helmet with the technology available to the Huns.
What was the standard of plate armour? Were all Knights and Men-at-Arms covered completely with 'top of the range' armour? Was every part of the body totally enclosed?

.......Orda

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Of course, the best we can do is guess. Even if we were all practicing soldiers (all historians are armchair theorists, you mean armchair generals surely), the tactics and weapons of the time are too far removed for us to really know for sure. The problem is that the longbow has been elevated to an almost divine status, connected with the image of Anglo-Saxon national superiority and collecting attributes that are sometimes quite ridiculous. I think CA has gone for a balanced view that makes the longbowmen superior missile troops with unique abilities, but not supreme. They may need a little tweaking, but arguing for them to outshoot everyone else on the basis of flimsy historical accounts calls for a response.

Nobody said the heads did nothing. 60m effective range is still considerably further than the reach of a mounted knight, plus the horse would be vulnerable at any range. There were weak points that could be pierced, the face/visor and shoulders being the most vulnerable to plunging arrow fire. Even if the plate was not penetrated, potentially lethal arrow fire was extremely unnerving, even to seasoned troops. Armor was evolving as well, and seems to have kept pace with the new armor-piercing arrows. To turn your argument around, why was the armor still worn if the arrows could penetrate it so easily? Shouldn't they have started reducing the amount of armor and increasing its thickness by Agincourt, like they tried to do against firearms a century later?

Although there is some debate over whether man-at-arms is synonymous with knight, they were the social elite, trained and bred for battle and relatively few in number compared to the professional state armies that replaced them. They would have been able to afford the very best. They were not regulars equipped with some army-standard bargain-rate equipment, they were rich (though deadly serious) warriors that commissioned their weapons and armor from master smiths. At least one historian (John Keegan, whose account of Agincourt I have on hand as I type this) considers it likely that most of the men-at-arms facing the English at Agincourt were fully armored in plate. He doesn't consider the longbow a mere "annoyance" either, since the knights were obviously dissuaded from approaching the archers and took casualties from them. But the image of English archers scything down waves of charging knights at 300 yards with a continuous stream of arrows like some WWI trench assault needs some gentle correction.

Longbows do have a higher rate of fire in the game. They already do. Watching crossbows reload is like watching grass grow. Watching muskets reload is like watching a bunch of circus clowns play soldier.

A side point: if you're firing at a massed AI army with enough longbows you can cause enormous casualties. I fired at a 1000 strong Milanese army who (for no apparent reason) had all bunched together. I had 7 units of Yeoman Archers (for those who love numbers, they were at full strength, making 420 longbows). By the time the Milanese thought it prudent to retreat, I'd killed 680 men for no casualties. And I wasn't even halfway through my arrow supplies. I'd say that's pretty powerful, actually.

Well said Darkmoor_Dragon. I think we have had enough armchair history mildly interesting it was..but it has now become a technical argument.

I agree the focus should be on their implementation in the game and one of unit balance issues...

Please no more England V France Wikipedia stuff! lol

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Originally Posted by dopp

Now just to clarify, was Grimaldi at Agincourt or at Crecy?

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Of course i meant Crecy :oops:

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Originally Posted by dopp

There's the matter of about a century or so between the two battles. There is also the little matter of the Genoese lacking some essential equipment (pavises) and not intending to have a missile duel in the first place, so the Crecy example isn't good enough either.

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I have to disagree dopp.I think it shows the superiority of the Longbow quite well.The pavise aside for one moment,when comparing the two weapons side by side the Longbow is far superior.If the pavise was created for large scale battles then why would they be necessary if the crossbow was comparable in performance to the Longbow?
The Genoese would have much preffered to have the Pavisises,as i would,and yes maybe things would have been different but i suppose we'll never know now.

As far the game goes i have found the longbow in large scale battles to be awesome.I just dont think the 1 V 1 in a custom battles shows them in a good light.
Regardless of history i'd take a balanced game over a historically accurate one every time.