hedges and Agincourt

[Vidar]

Hurrah!

I played through the battle Last night and won, I took all the footsoldiers into
the small copse of trees,next to the Buildings on the english 's right at the start of the battle - I then strung the billmen out forming an arrow the tip pointing towards the advancing french , i then positioned the other foot soldiers in similar lines inside the wood, i then sent my cavalry back behind the buildings out of view, it was at this point i thought "oh i better move my archers" - too late - the french knights on my left had begun to engage them, at first, I did curse greatly with much gnashing of teeth etc and i was about to start again thinking it was all over when i noticed that the archers seemed to be managing ok they where taking loses but so where the french knights who seemed to be kind of unsure what to do
- while this was happening the French King and the main body of his troops were attacking my guys in the wood, i waited till the majority of the french force was engaged with the billmen and then brought my cavalry round the side of the buildings and charged the rear of the french engaged in the wood
by this time my archers were pretty much dead I was just about to give up when the French king was killed by billmen in the wood and moments later the French were running!

I wish that i could say that leaving the archers was some kind of cold clinical plan but - nah it was just luck - I think it allowed the troops in the woods enough time to tackle the french cavalry before they were overwhelmed.
Good fun But now ive got a lot of letters to write to the families of those poor archers
Cheers for the Advice folks

[Csargo]

- the french knights on my left had begun to engage them, at first, I did curse greatly with much gnashing of teeth etc and i was about to start again thinking it was all over when i noticed that the archers seemed to be managing ok they where taking loses but so where the french knights who seemed to be kind of unsure what to do

Congrats on your victory Vidar and yes English longbowmen are very good soldiers thats probably my favorite unit out of the whole game.

[Ciaran]

If I´m right they not only have armour-piercing arrows but carry axes for melee as well, which makes them superior killers of anything in a tin can.

[macsen rufus]

Historically I believe longbowmen used to carry daggers which - being more nimble than the canned variety of footman - they could easily slip through gaps in armour, and ALSO had mallets for hammering in their stakes, which are no doubt as good as maces against armour. Either way, they're damn fine units in MTW!

[Vidar]

I wonder why no other countries seem to have adopted the long bow - The advent of gunpowder? - my favorite unit so far are the joms vikings but that may change as i get more subtle with tactics

[Ciaran]

I don´t know when the longbow was first used, but chances are the time period in which it was used was simply too short to spread the technology. As well, from what I know (next door to nothing) it was mainly the French who faced the longbow- armed troops, so chances are word didn´t get beyond France.

[CBR]

The longbow itself is an old weapon but it was England who first made sure that most commoners were familiar with the weapon to ensure large numbers of archers as support to their men-at-arms. The French created their own force of Francs-Archers but never in the same numbers nor as the only missile armed infantry as the crossbow was a popular weapon on the continent.

The crossbow were in general better in sieges and the heavier versions were more powerful than bows, so it had a higher chance of penetrating armour.

Although missile armed infantry were quite useful it needed support. The English infantry from mid 15th century had anywhere between 33 to perhaps 50% armed with Bills and spears. And even earlier at Crecy there were both Welsh archers as well as spearmen in Edwards army.


CBR

[Ludens]

I wonder why no other countries seem to have adopted the long bow - The advent of gunpowder?

The problem is that to become a good longbowman requires a long time of training, even moreso than an ordinary bowman. In Wales there was a long tradition of archery, and the English Kings made longbow training obligatory in England (even to the point of forbidding football), so they had a large pool of trained longbowmen available for recruitment. Countries lacking such traditions simply could not field enough of them to make a difference.

The early muskets weren't a match for the English longbows: they couldn't even outrange them, and were far less accurate and far slower to reload. However, they did have one big advantage. Training a longbowman took years, training a musketeers mere days.

[Vidar]

So The Training of those 5000 peasants in the use of the longbow - from an early age im guessing - really paid off. Ive Heard that the physical demands of the long bow actually altered the bones and muscles in the upper torso of its users - Big chest muscles and thickened bones - In the village that i live in Fife there is an old part called "bow butts" which i believe is the where the archery practice took place i dont think it would have necessarily been longbows though - im sure that all over britain there are similarly named streets, what about outside the uk - Denmark for example - is there a similar
occurence in place names indicating medieval or older military practice.

I had forgotten about the crossbow didnt someone like the Pope try to have them outlawed because anyone could aim,fire and kill with one, and this was thought of being rather unsporting

[CBR]

Hm training wasnt really an issue IMO. It took years to train English archers for the simple reason that most people had like one hour of shooting every Sunday and started when they were kids. You dont become an expert marksman with such training nor will you gain much muscle to draw a very heavy bow.

Some would of course have liked shooting and trained more and I guess one could expect a lot more skill from retainers.

Crossbowmen trained a lot too and were common as mercs and their expertise were highly valued (Just as bands of English archers were too)

The arquebus was a cheap weapon compared to crossbows (but still more costly than bows) and there are examples of Italian cities who would only refund lost arquebuses and refused to pay for crossbows. That certainly had an effect of what weapon men would buy.

I have read some conflicting details on armour penetration of arquebuses but there is no doubt that the musket had a lot more power than the arquebus, and AFAIK did become widespread during the later half of 16th century.

The English experience was somewhat different as they already had a pretty cheap weapon in the bow. It worked ok for them but it did show its weakness against well armoured opponents. And as they werent involved in that many conflicts against continental armies they werent forced to do same type of military reforms like other continental armies did. But guns and pikes slowly entered English armies and in late 16th century the bow was finally retired.

One of the arguments made then, for keeping the bow, was actually that they already had lots of bows and trained men so it would be a waste of time and money to convert them to musketeers.

Although bows could shoot faster I dont agree that their accuracy was so much better than a musket nor the range. A heavy arrow would have a range of 200-250 yards and the heavy 16th century musket still packed quite a punch as that range too.

An arrow/bolt with a velocity of around 55-60 m/s versus a lead ball of 300-400 m/s certainly makes aiming very different. Long range shots are very difficult with a bow if you dont know the range. Misjudging range just 5% could mean a clear miss. Shooting at long range is basically just area fire hoping some of the shots will hit.


CBR