obsolete?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Yes, weapons become outdated. Not only are offensive weapons far better now, but today's soldiers have access to ceramic body armor that can stop a 7.62x39mm round travelling extremely fast (900m/s and lower, depends on range). That will most definately stop an arrow, sword stroke or any other type of old-style weapon.

Also armored vehicles compound the modern advantage. Weapons and armor become outdated, there is no avoiding it and even though old weapons can still kill unarmored targets the speed, lethality, ease of manufacture, ease of training and quick reaction time of modern weaponry far surpasses old weapons. Theoretically a bowman could defeat a modern day rifleman, but he would need a certain degree of luck and suprise and armies need to be able to operate consistently.

I rambled a bit, sorry...

[pezhetairoi]

Outdatedness depends solely on what or who you oppose those weapons to. If you take archers against rifles, archers are outdated. If you're doing archers against spearmen, hardly so. You can't consider the issue in isolation from the opposition.

[TosaInu]

..ceramic body armor that can stop a 7.62x39mm round travelling extremely fast (900m/s and lower, depends on range). That will most definately stop an arrow, sword stroke or any other type of old-style weapon.

I recall that it's a bit more complex than that. A buletproof armor doesn't have to stop a knive stab.

[Aenlic]

I believe you are right, TosaInu. Body armor is all about kinetic energy. It is made to spread the kinetic energy from an incoming round or shrapnel reducing the ability of that round to penetrate. That doesn't translate into protecting against a knife, though certainly an arrow might be more like a bullet. The reason that a bullet's kinetic energy can be dissipated and spread is because it is a short-lived event. A knife thrust is of a much longer duration, with the energy continuing after the initial thrust energy is spread out through the fabric. Modern body armor also doesn't protect against slashing damage or wide-spread blunt force (such as say a mace), both of which ovecome the kinetic energy spreading properties of the armor.

[CBR]

The body armour that stops rifle bullets use ceramic plates to do it. Some of them can stop a 7.62mm NATO round at point blank range. An arrow would not be able to cut through such plates in the same way it might do against a soft kevlar vest.

But anyway bodyarmour will not be the main reason for why bows are totally outclassed in a modern battlefield as rifles are superior in every way, rate of fire, accuracy, range and amount of ammo. Bows existed in a time where melee was important but today firepower is everything. For that little melee that can still be done today a bayonent, riflebutt or unarmed martial arts works fine.


CBR

[RabidGibbon]

Not completly off topic, but perhaps pushing it....

I once read that a 1000 longbowmen would have easily defeated a 1000 of Wellingtons redcoats as the longbow had superior rate of fire and equal if not superior range.

The reason the longbow was discontinued wasn't because it wasn't as effective as a musket but because you had to spend your whole life in training to use it, whereas after a few hours any muppet can use a musket.

[CBR]

Well its an interesting duel of different weapons.

An archer could of course shoot faster than a musketeer but one thing is rate of fire another thing is how effective it is. In other words sure they could shoot faster but how accurate was it?

Muskets have a much more flat trajectory compared to bows so its easier to miss with an arrow if you dont know the exact range and in a chaotic battlefield thats never gonna be easy.

From what we know of longbow v longbow fights like in the War of the Roses they didnt have heavy losses which suggests that they were not that deadly and accurate as some like archers to be. Armour is not the only explanation as a lot of the lower classes didnt have much armour.

Muskets could stop cavalry charges with short range salvos while longbows used ditches, stakes and most of time had rear ranks of spearmen or billmen to help them. Sure they could face well armoured cavalry so that of course could explain why arrows were not good enough to stop cavalry alone. But not all Men-at-Arms had heavily armoured horses.

So a longrange duel at a range of 100-150 yards would archers be able to win? If they were good I guess they could but I doubt it would be a one sided affair.

At the time when England finally went over to muskets (late 16th century) the heavy musket was a weapon with superior armour penetration. It might also have been less inaccurate than later 18th century muskets, which focused more on rapid rate of fire and therefore had bigger windage.

Training of longbowmen was free for the English king as that was part of regulations for all to train every Sunday so in a way he didnt have to care about how long it took to train them. Some of the defenders of keeping the longbow did use the argument of training, but it was the other way around as they noted how England already had well trained archers while switching completely over to guns would mean buying new weapons as well as training all archers to use them.

In reality England in the later part of 16th century was, from a military point if view, a backwater nation that still relied on the old bow and bill militias which were outclassed by the continental pike and musket armies. The bows could not be expected to stop armoured pikemen nor could the billmen be expected to defeat pikemen.


CBR

[Kagemusha]

This is a very intresting question.Ofcourse modern weapons outclasses older ones.But if we look at modern melee weopons of soldier they are pretty old inventions.The baynet and knife are classics,i dont know the right word in english but the field shovel is more un -orthodox melee weapon of novadays infantryman.When i was at the army,we trained the use of a field shovel.Man can cut a sandbag on half with single slash.Think what it will do to a human when aimed in the neck.

[Red Harvest]

I once read that a 1000 longbowmen would have easily defeated a 1000 of Wellingtons redcoats as the longbow had superior rate of fire and equal if not superior range.

I think those longbowmen would fall pretty fast once the redcoats closed into melee with their bayonets. Discipline wise the longbowmen wouldn't stand a chance at close quarters. So perhaps the answer would be a mass charge.

At range the longbowmen would probably have an advantage in fire rate and effective range. However, a person could probably survive some longbow hits and still fight as long as they weren't center mass, while taking a 0.75 caliber musket ball would be more likely to take off an arm or leg or incapacitate. It would also matter what sort of terrain was being used, although the redcoats of that era would likely stand there stoically and take a beating rather than fire from cover. A musket user should have some advantage of being able to take cover while reloading and only being partially exposed when firing.

[swirly_the_toilet_fish]

Other than ceramic, the reason most other armours cannot stop a knife is because it has two impacts; one when the knife touches the surface of armour or the skin, and the second being the forced applied from the human arm. Besides, there are always openings between plates, so if you studied the armour you could puncture a soldier between the ribs through a small gap in the plates. I believe this is why with most kevlar vests, law enforcement also has a layer of good ole fashion chainmail underneath the kevlar.

But please, someone correct me. I have problems remembering things and mixing them together.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I recall that it's a bit more complex than that. A buletproof armor doesn't have to stop a knive stab.

I was talking only of ceramic body armor, I bet kevlar armor would do the same thing , but I am not certain. Ceramic plate would most definately stop a knife.

[Grey_Fox]

Musket was wildly innacurate at anything over 70 yards. I believe that optimum range was 50 yards.

[CBR]

Musket was wildly innacurate at anything over 70 yards. I believe that optimum range was 50 yards.

Armies did several tests during the 18th and 19th century and IIRC the hitrate on a target (6 foot high and 10+ feet wide to simulate a line of infantry) was anywhere between 50 and 60% at 100 yards. The reason for the lower number of hits in real battles were human factors (stress fear etc) and of course smoke.

Some statistics on actual battlefield performance would be like 5% or lower at 100 yards. At a benchrest a musket would place its ball within a oval of about 75 centimeters height and 60 centimeters width at a range of 150 yards. Not very good if we compare to modern day rifles but nonetheless not that bad as the human factors were the main reason for low amount of hits.


CBR

[Grey_Fox]

I heard something like that alright CBR in a book I read. I meant battlefield scenarios.

[CBR]

You mean actual ranges that units fought at?

There are examples of units holding fire until at 20-40 yards distance. That especially in 18th century with the well disciplined armies of the day. But lots of fights were apparently done at longer ranges like 100-150 yards and sometimes it even started further out.

One problem with muskets is that it takes time to reload so if you want to make sure to stop an enemy you do want him to come very close so you can fire off one devastating salvo. In the short range examples the side the shot first got like 20-25% of their shots in. There are stories of units that had the whole first rank go down.


CBR