How do I train longbowmen?

[aylesburian]

I am playing my first game of Medieval Total War with the Viking Invasion expansion pack. I started as the English 1087, it is now 1202 and I want to train longbowmen. I have built castles and bowyers' guilds in Wales and the three English provinces but only have the option of training ordinary archers. Have I done something wrong?

[Don Corleone]

Wait 3 years. The early age ends in 1204. You can't build Longbowmen until High. Good luck!

[Betito]

Same goes for billmen, another fine addition to the english army. Those two will give a very nice boost to your power, since you won't have to worry about Chivalric Knights. Wait until 1205...

Edit: Correction about the year, originally i had put 1025 which, of course, is not in the time range.

[EvilNed]

Oh how I hate billmen! They cut apart both my infantry and my cavalry! Arrgh!

[Ash]

Billmen rock. They get a valour bonus in Mercia, and they have great morale once you get in some Churches etc. Plus after some armour upgrades they resist missles very good despite having no shield.

They're so good they can even preform decently in the desert against Muslim troops. While they do cook in all that armour, they're so good at attack and defense you can actually use them very effectively for a short while.

They best in sieges in my experience. I've seen these guys cut up everything inside castles while taking minimal losses from missles.

[bluebird]

Bribe the welsh rebels in the first turn and you have a HUGE advantage with these longbowmen in the early period.

The term "longbow" is a latter addition, could be Victorian but the bows themselves have been around for a long time. the earliest bow with the distinctive longbow shape has been found preserved in a peat bog in Scotland and is estimated to be over three thousand years old. So why are they only available to Welsh rebels? I wonder when England started it's compulsory archery lessons, probably just before the hundred years wars I suppose.

Anyway, bribe those Welsh bows and go and quarrel with a Frenchman. The best start an English campaign could have.

[ajaxfetish]

The longbow is particularly associated with Wales because the English adopted it from them. The English started using it during the time of Edward I (of Braveheart fame) who first subdued Wales before his wars with Scotland (would have been sometime in the late 1200's). The longbow was a major weapon in the Welsh armies and Edward was so impressed with it that he brought along a bunch of Welsh archers on his next Scottish campaign, where they devastated the immobile Scottish spear formations at Falkirk. From this point the English started training their own people in the use of the Longbow and by the time of Edward III and the hundred years war it was one of their primary weapons and had a huge influence on their tactics. They continued to employ many Welsh soldiers in their wars with France both as archers and irregulars.

[Shottie]

Another good idea, if you are playing as the French, bribe the welsh for their longbowmen, so those English cant have them! Then attack the island fortress of England, and crush them!!! *evil laugh*

I like to play as both English and French, so I fight myslef alot! haha

[Zarax]

Even better, go east and bribe the mounted crossbows, then watch the armored foot die.

[damage_13]

the English War Bow was so successfull in its rate of fire:range ratio that Wellesly and even an American General (in the war of Independance and later.. the Civil War) considered training a battalion of bowmen.

Consider this... a well trained British Infantryman (nobody else used live ammo for training in both musketry and ship based cannon... hence .. everyone else was crap) could fire his muskett 5 times a min ... 3 for a rifle... yet over the same range (and with increased accuracy depending on the skill of the archer) an archer could release a shaft once every 4-6 seconds... or in other words... by the time the first wave of arrows hit their targets (at long range) there would be two more volleys in flight with the next being notched in.

unfortunately for the British, Colonial British and North generals... the time it would've taken to resurrect and train the skill and men was too long for their needs (and the maintanence of said units)

[Empirate]

Wasn't that always the problem of the bow, especially one with such heavy pull as the "English" longbow? The amount of training it takes to master this weapon is extraordinary compared to the time it takes to train in firearms or crossbows. Only by making it a part of your culture can you hope for enough recruits trained in using the damn thing. But then it's devastating (greetings from Azincourt).

[ajaxfetish]

Yep. That's why the English were the only major ones that had it. By the time everyone else realized how effective it was, they didn't have enough time to train it up. Crossbows and early handguns were just so much easier to learn that it wasn't worth it for anyone else to go the longbow route. This meant that later on the English were a lot slower getting involved in the gunpowder race, though, as they had their longbow crutch to fall back on.

[Shottie]

the English War Bow was so successfull in its rate of fire:range ratio that Wellesly and even an American General (in the war of Independance and later.. the Civil War) considered training a battalion of bowmen.

Consider this... a well trained British Infantryman (nobody else used live ammo for training in both musketry and ship based cannon... hence .. everyone else was crap) could fire his muskett 5 times a min ... 3 for a rifle... yet over the same range (and with increased accuracy depending on the skill of the archer) an archer could release a shaft once every 4-6 seconds... or in other words... by the time the first wave of arrows hit their targets (at long range) there would be two more volleys in flight with the next being notched in.

unfortunately for the British, Colonial British and North generals... the time it would've taken to resurrect and train the skill and men was too long for their needs (and the maintanence of said units)

The English were also very good a musketry battles, because they had a solid wall of lead going towards the enemy with her volley. It was a great wave effect when they fired, right down the line one at a time. I forget what this is called but they speak of it alot in the Bernard Cornwell Sharpe's Series.

[damage_13]

platoon fire..

It was also cos we formed up in ranks 3-4 deep... not in coloumns, so we had more soldiers able to bring arms to bear,

the training in the use of the warbow effectivly took around 10 12 years and was learnt from an early age, so by the time adulthood was reached, the 100lb pull could be done around 20 or so times in a battle

[English assassin]

The English were also very good a musketry battles, because they had a solid wall of lead going towards the enemy with her volley. It was a great wave effect when they fired, right down the line one at a time. I forget what this is called but they speak of it alot in the Bernard Cornwell Sharpe's Series.

The British Army traditionally put a lot of training into musketry, and even in modern times spend a lot more time worrying about the ability of an individual infantryman to shoot accurately at long range than many other armies.

In Napoloenic times it was standard practice to hold part of a regiment's volley back, so that notwithstanding the slow rate of fire of the musket a more or less continuous fire was maintained. I am not sure why that was so much more effective than one large volley, possibly because with one large volley the men at the head of the enemy column are shot more than once, wasting fire, possibly because if the first part volley was held back until the enemy was close, then if they continued advancing the second part volley would still be available before they closed fully, and at really very short range.

But I don't think anyone these days really knows what musketry battkles were like or how they really worked.

[damage_13]

we do, as there is a lot of information out there to be researched (in just the Pennisular War alone)

The way the companies fired depended on the situation and the enemy they faced.

ripple(used by spanish), by platoon, 2,3 file cont rotation, 4+ files upwards when facing cav, single shot at 50 yards and charge (with bayonets)

accuracy wasn't even considered... cos while you're getting shot at, reloading your musket with all that smoke and din happening, just before you fire you would probably reminded nicely by your Snt to aim low at their bellies.

the platoon, company, regiment was positioned facing the threat and essentially treated like a giant shotgun. Depending on the weather, the smoke made by the first shot partially obscured the enemy anyway, by the time you had raised you musket for the third shot you were lucky to see more than 2ft in front of you anyway.

only skirmishers were used as marksmen, with the British the only european army fielding rifles for this purpose (although there were cases of company vs company engagements where the rifles where used in platoon fire shooting)

[bluebird]

I hear the British Army is again considering the Longbow as a replacement for the SA80, as you are more likely to lose a couple of fingers firing this rifle than if you were a medieval bowman.