Longbow(s)

[Ludens]

As I said before there is evidence that European people used longbows before and after EB's time frame, so they were most likely used within EB's time frame as well. Because of their greater power and efficiency it's safe to guess that they would have been used quite often in war.

If longbows were so clearly superior, why had they disappeared in most European countries by the middle ages?

[Foot]

Were longbows used for hunting, or were they specifically warbows. It seems that any attempt to stalk prey with a bow the size of a man is not going to be successful.

Foot

[KARTLOS]

If longbows were so clearly superior, why had they disappeared in most European countries by the middle ages?

maybe poor nutrition! - you have to be very strong to use one.

They did require that the bowman practice a lot, it is much simpler to equip people with crossbows and guns.

Were longbows used for hunting, or were they specifically warbows. It seems that any attempt to stalk prey with a bow the size of a man is not going to be successful.

Foot

you can get different sized longbows! it doesnt have to be full length (size of a man) to be considered a longbow.

[Atraphoenix]

maybe poor nutrition! - you have to be very strong to use one.

They did require that the bowman practice a lot, it is much simpler to equip people with crossbows and guns.



you can get different sized longbows! it doesn't have to be full length (size of a man) to be considered a longbow.

that is right I am not surprised why Football banned in favour of of archery in England.
but the aim was different from the user one may prefer the longer distance one may prefer accuracy..
mongol and their successor nomad bows mostly were made to release the arrow as far away as possible.
but records does support both sides namely accuracy and distance but that is right that to be a good archer one should spend his years for mastery. parthians, mongols and many nomad non nomad factions grew up their sons with this training. to use guns was easy so that is why archers lost their position in the armies after gunners started to be deployed in the armies. in fact early gunners were less deadlier than archers but it was easy to replace gunners but not archers (Ottoman Wars after 1700s and Lepanto were good example of this.)

[ShadesWolf]

If longbows were so clearly superior, why had they disappeared in most European countries by the middle ages?

Two main reasons my friend

1/ euopean countries, France is an excellent example, didnt want to put the power of a unique weapon in the masses hands, as they were nervous of the power it would give them.

2/ the develpment of the fire arms, any basically trained peasant could fire one, needed no years of training or strength.

[Tuuvi]

If longbows were so clearly superior, why had they disappeared in most European countries by the middle ages?

I did not mean that longbows were vastly superior, what I meant is that the longbow design has some advantages over shorter bows. I will have to do some reading in order to remember what exactly they were, however I believe it has something to with the length of the string when drawing the bow. I would also like to point out that shorter bows can be just as powerful as longbows with the right design (Asiatic composite bows being a great example).

You're also forgetting that the English longbowmen have a reputation for having been the best archers in medieval Europe.

Were longbows used for hunting, or were they specifically warbows. It seems that any attempt to stalk prey with a bow the size of a man is not going to be successful.

Foot

Longbows can be used for hunting quite successfully. Today in the U.S. there is a small niche of people who prefer to use real wooden bows for hunting over the modern compound bow; longbows are a pretty popular choice among these people. There are also historical examples of longbows being used for hunting. The Eastern Woodland Indians used longbows for hunting. I believe that the bows I mentioned in my earlier post were used for hunting, but the book does not say what the bows were used for so that is a guess on my part.

[Owen Glyndwr]

If I recall correctly, the longbow wasn't even very popular in the English army until Edward I (of Braveheart fame) encountered their deadly capabilities at the hands of the Welsh during his campaigns. (1276-1277 & 1282-1283)

The longbow was extremely effective in Welsh warfare, which relied a lot more on hit and run tactics, and ambushes compared to the heavy cavalry based combat of the English and French.

Out of lazyness, I have cited wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_longbow#History

[Mediolanicus]

Two main reasons my friend

1/ euopean countries, France is an excellent example, didnt want to put the power of a unique weapon in the masses hands, as they were nervous of the power it would give them.

2/ the develpment of the fire arms, any basically trained peasant could fire one, needed no years of training or strength.

Nation states and fire arms weren't around in 600-1000 AD...

BTW, aren't argument 1 and argument 2 a bit contradictory?
We don't want to put the power of a unique weapon in their hands, which they can use highly effectively if they learn to master it by livelong practice. So we gave them fire arms, easy to use; kills everything you aim at, not unique at all.

[Apázlinemjó]

If longbows were so clearly superior, why had they disappeared in most European countries by the middle ages?

I think we can find the answer in the society of those "monarchs" in the "classic" middle ages (before the Hundred Years' War). Who fought the battles? Nobles/knights whose role was the "honourable" heavy cavalry and the peasants who had to arm themselves usually (and citizens mostly in North-Italy). The "mainlander" peasants had to pay taxes, work on the estates and on their own lands I don't think that they had that much time to master archery/hunting. Also with the appearance of the crossbows (around 12-13. century) which required little skill to use, it was evident that it was favoured over the longbows. But these are my thoughts only.

[antisocialmunky]

Depends, both have different limitations and advantages. It probably was a combination of several things that lead certain people to favor certain technologies. It was probably a combination of armor and population pool. England had a decent amount of archers to already draw from. However the pool was shrinking or not large enough to accomodate the need as evidenced by the laws passed to make people practice archery.

Archery was never that popular among commoners on the continent. You only need to look back to EB times to see this. Romans employed Africans and Easterners to serve as archers. So if you're a continental country without a large supply pool of archers, without an large cottage industry capable of supporting the number of archers you need anyways, and you need a ranged unit... What is the best choice for you to make economically speaking? The easier solution of course, you train your peasants to be crossbowmen. You import the technical expertise from Italy so you don't have to develop the base and you get crossbow dominated armies which is a much better opportunity cost than starting from scratch. That or you just hire whatever mercenaries are on the market which would have been pretty light on trained bowmen but have a decent pool of crossbowmen.

Then of course there's the argument that mid-late medieval steel armors forced stronger bows which fewer archers could use that created an upper physical limit on the power of bows while crossbows could be mechanically cranked. And the crossbow more naturally segwayed into firearms.

A concrete timeframe would also help in this discussion...

[jazstl]

Accualy the discusion is aboute antique longbows not the medieval ones.

I would like to know if they were used so comonly, why don t put them in the game... (?)

[seienchin]

A bow might be a deadly weapon in a skilled mans hand, but its not too usefull against heavy infantry with shields. Without the stakes and bad weather the english bowman at agincourt would never have beaten the french knights.

About the firearms discussion,
A weapon beeing able to kill people by penetrating their shields and their armour and inflicting huge wounds (The first firearms used quite big bullets, often made of lead causing deadly poisoning) is much more frightening than arrows which you can absorb which your shields. (Or at least have the illuson about it). Another point is the space bowman need to have. Firearms mad close shooting formations possible.

[-42-]

About the firearms discussion,
A weapon beeing able to kill people by penetrating their shields and their armour and inflicting huge wounds (The first firearms used quite big bullets, often made of lead causing deadly poisoning) is much more frightening than arrows which you can absorb which your shields. (Or at least have the illuson about it). Another point is the space bowman need to have. Firearms mad close shooting formations possible.

Quick note about the lead poisoning, lead isn't some sort of deadly poison, it increases chances of birth defects. The reason lead bullets are so deadly is the combination of the deformation of the projectile, which produces much larger wound channels. Odds are most of the post battle deaths were caused by infection as opposed to "lead poisoning" (look at the massive infection death toll for the US Civil War). And early firearms needed quite a bit of space, being giant chucks of firespitting metal laible to explode if mishandled.

[antisocialmunky]

The thing that causes concern about lead even today is of bullets corroding and the lead finding its way into the ground water. Lead takes a while to kill you but the thing is that heavy metal build up inside of organisms is virtually impossible to get rid of. So a little bit over a long enough period of time will screw you up quite badly.

Yeah... battlefield clean up is very expensive. Now back to the topic!