muskets vs.longbows in MTW2

[Servius]

The TW games have often had novelty units that weren't particularly effective in history or in the game, but they put them in for fun. That's how I saw gunpowder units in Shogun and M1, Kerns and other javelin troops in M1, and certain Roman artillery pieces in Rome. Maybe this is another example of that.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The TW games have often had novelty units that weren't particularly effective in history or in the game, but they put them in for fun. That's how I saw gunpowder units in Shogun and M1, Kerns and other javelin troops in M1, and certain Roman artillery pieces in Rome. Maybe this is another example of that.

Mate the unit you refer to ask Kerns was a skirmisher unit in most Irish armies through the medieval period to the defeat of the O Donnell and O Neil army at Kinsale in the early 17th century. The were also used extensively in wars on the continent especially by Henry the VIII in France. They were hardy warriors and feared by their English enemies. Their appearance was seen in awe and many people in Britain would look on a Kern in amazement as if they were looking at a warrior from the Americas. Also their habit of taking enemy heads was frowned upon as well.

I never saw them as an insignificant or a novelty unit not in my campaigns anyway. I hope they have been added in the new game with Glibs aplenty

[ShadesWolf]

I would suspect it will just come down to time and money.
How much time have you got and what resources do you have....

If money is low then build gunpower units. On mass they could do quite a bit of damage....

If money is vaste, then build the superior longbow units...

[poo_for_brains]

I would suspect it will just come down to time and money.
How much time have you got and what resources do you have....

If money is low then build gunpower units. On mass they could do quite a bit of damage....

If money is vaste, then build the superior longbow units...

True. I just thought it would be weird to still be using bows after gunpowder is invented - kinda feels stupid.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The warbow was a tried and tested weapon. It was reliable in battle and had rarely let the English army down in battle. The gun was often more dangerous to its owner than an enemy. The weapon was erratic at best and you were better off beating the enemy with it as a club than firing it. The early 16th century saw though how trained gunmen could cause havoc. Pavia and Biccoca being the most obvious battle in question.

[cannon_fodder]

The TW games have often had novelty units that weren't particularly effective in history or in the game, but they put them in for fun. That's how I saw gunpowder units in Shogun and M1, Kerns and other javelin troops in M1, and certain Roman artillery pieces in Rome. Maybe this is another example of that.

"put them in for fun"? I can't say for the other things you mentioned, but whether or not you think they were effective, firearms saw widespread use in the closing stages of Sengoku Jidai. So their inclusion was rather important.

[Martinaz]

I fear that CA may accidently overpower gunpowder units. Arquebusiers in MTW were about exactly right.

In the time it was intvented, the knights were totaly surpised by those bullets becouse the bullets could go through the knight's armour. so strong was it.

[Furious Mental]

Yeah I think gunpowder weapons will probably be more effective against armour than other missile weapons.

[Kagemusha]

Here is an from one of my Ospreys about the range differences between the Japanese Yumi bow and an Teppo musket which was an matchlock musket type that arrived in Japan in 1542.Ofcourse the Yumi was lot weaker bow then the English longbow.But i think the picture gives out of good idea of a muskets range in 1500´s.


The values are from left to right: ideal range,effective killing range and max range.And this is against armoured opponents.

[Randarkmaan]

Yeah gunpowder weapons probably had a longer maximum range than longbows, but the thing is that most gunpowder weapons were very inaccurate and therefore it was hard to hit a far away target...

[Servius]

My appologies about novelty units. What I meant was that Kerns were weak in M1 (though they were tougher in the England campaign of VI) as were most gunpowder units in Shogun and M1. I have no idea how strong these units were in real life as I was born in 1979.

[cannon_fodder]

^ Oh, I see.

Kagemusha, I've read those same figures for bow and arquebus ranges. Perhaps CA needs to introduce (if they haven't already, I don't actually know) another value in ranged unit stats, which has to do with how much energy the projectile loses over a certain distance. Max, effective kill, and ideal ranges need to see representation for the arquebuse's merits to truly show.

[Ulstan]

"Yeah gunpowder weapons probably had a longer maximum range than longbows, but the thing is that most gunpowder weapons were very inaccurate and therefore it was hard to hit a far away target..."

Which is why you had gunpowder weapons firing en masse at a massed target if you wanted to be effective... at least up until the advent of rifled muskets and vastly greater accuracy. But that's how the bows were used too.

Sure the early muskets were no doubt inferior to bows, but eventually (obviously) they surpassed bows which is why basically *all* infantry units in the 17th and 18th centuries were using firearms and not bows. If the bow was a superior weapon, just harder to aim and taking longer to master, presumably we'd have seen all the 'elite' units in the army using bows and the common rabble using muskets - but this isn't what happened. Everyone wanted the guns. When european forces met natives still using bows and arrows, it was the natives trying to arm themselves with guns, not the europeans trying to arm themselves with bows. At some point then, muskets passed bows in terms of effectiveness, at what point this happened can be argued over, but one can guess that it was certainly no *later* than when the armies of the time began switching over to firearms, given the tendency to hold on to what is known and comfortable over embracing a new technology.

Muskets had a longer range and greater penetrating power and were easier to master. You could stick a bayonet on a musket and then musket armed troops were quite capable of storming enemy held positions and taking them in hand to hand combat. You can fire 'on the run' with a musket if you are doing close in fighting and an enemy target of opportunity presents itself. There is no scope for on the run firing of longbows and longbows would have to be ditched at once should hand to hand fighting ensue. Muskets can be fired from more positions than a longbow. You can lay in a ditch and fire a musket, be tired to the bone and still fire a musket with deadly force.

I think any rifled musket armed regiment of infantry in the 19th century would have torn a bow armed group to shreds if they stood around in the open field, and if they were engaged in trench or city fighting they musket group would have an even greater advantage.

[ajaxfetish]

When firearms were first introduced, they had both strengths and weaknesses compared to bows. Eventually those weaknesses were overcome, but most of that is beyond the scope of the game. What will make the relationship great is if CA can represent both their relative strengths (ease of training, lightweight ammunition, aiming without maintaining tension--also an advantage of crossbows--melee ability, penetrating power, etc), and their weaknesses (rate of fire, accuracy at range--the arrow has natural spin from its fletchings, while the musket had to wait for rifling--limitations in weather, cost to develop the technology, etc).

Both unit types should be useful, but should outshine each other depending on the situation and how well suited they are to face it.

Ajax

[sharrukin]

The bow was a superior weapon to the smoothbore musket.
The Panther tank was superior to the Sherman tank as well as the T-34 tank.
As military weapons of war however the T-34 and the Sherman were superior to the Panther, due to questions of industrial production, simplicity and numbers.
Military equipment has requirements that go beyond simple weapon quality.

"A soldier's musket, if not exceedingly ill bored, will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at 100; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded...at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; I do maintain...no man was ever killed at 200 yards, by a common soldier's musket by the person who aimed at him."

- British Col. George Hanger, 1814

"A late 18th century Prussian experiment, in which a battalion of infantry fired at a target 100 feet long by 6 feet high, representing an enemy unit resulted in 25% hits at 225 yards, 40% hits at 150 yards and 60% hits at 75 yards. Under the stress of battle the proportion of hits would inevitably decline. In 1717 at the battle of Belgrade 2 Imperial battalions held their fire until their turkish opponents were only 30 paces away, but hit only 32 turks when they fired and were promptly overwhelmed."

"Prussian studies show that an infantry battalion could fire five shots in volley per minute, at an average rate of about two rounds per man per minute. While this put as much lead into the air as a modern machine gun, it did not mean that the fusillade hit as much, as during another musketry test conducted in 1813, another Prussian test battalion put just 40% of its shots into a target 6 feet high and 100 feet long at a range of 100 yards."

The advent of firearms allowed an increase in the number of men who could be dangerous on the battlefield. While less dangerous individually, the musketeer could be trained from lower quality human material and trained much more rapidly than a longbowman. This resulted in an increase in the size of armies from the 17th and 18th centuries onwards. From 1500 to 1700 the size of armies increased more than ten-fold. The inaccuracy of muskets required massed volley fire by low quality troops who could in times of peace be disbanded, and taken up again in times of war. This reduced pressure on the treasury and allowed increasingly powerful national states to monopolize military power.

The idea that militaries are engines of efficiency is simply wrong! The Caracole used by cavalry is a case in point. It was essentially a useless tactic that continued to be used despite this. Napoleon increased the effectiveness of cavalry by reintroducing the ancient lance for his cavalry. Of course by this time the advent of effective rifling for firearms, conical bullets, and magazines spelled the end of shock cavalry.

[Watchman]

The caracole worked right fine for the job it was designed for, namely dealing with pikemen and their inevitably accompanying musketeers through sheer volume of fire combined with the superior durability of armoured cavalrymen. It's not like cavalry could tackle pike by any other means than shooting them up anyway, not counting outflanking and suchlike.

It just wasn't a terribly effective tactic for dealing with other cavalrymen, not in the least because the pistols barely dented the sort of armour worn by heavy cavalry from beyond five meters; the reason it was nonetheless employed for the purpose for a while was primarily a question of the psychology and motivation of the soldiers who made up the heavy cavalry - mercenaries to a man and expensive to equip and train, both they and their commanders tended to be shall we say prudent on the battlefield.

Anyway, any decent war-bow in capable hands was by far superior a ranged weapon to any early man-portable firearm. Superior range and rate of fire for one. Firearms did have superior penetrating power to make up for their awful reloading times, much like heavy crossbows, but the very early ones in particular were pretty much short-range skirmish weapons. Crossbows kind of pwned them in effective range too.

What guns did have going for them (aside from issues like ease of use - they weren't much superior to the more accurate and longer-ranged crossbows in that regard either, AFAIK) was sheer psychological impact. The noise and smoke they made was just plain sacry, especially if they were fired en masse at close range - that they likely only caused superficial casualties was quite irrelevant in this respect. I've seen it claimed that in the first battle ever the Russians employed firearms against their ever-troublesome steppe-nomad neighbours, the latter were so disturbed by the first volley (which killed no men) they quit the field wholesale.

Terror weapons, basically. The more sophisticated arquebuses and muskets were actually some good also for killing people rather than just frightening them. In that, although they still lost out in accuracy, they did most of the things heavy crossbows could, some rather better, and also had a few subtler perks. One was the fact they could punch through things like ship railings and similar obstacles rather more effectively. Another was the relatively small size of their ammunition - a musketeer could carry as much as sixty shots' worth without particular difficulties, and this was regarded as sufficient for an entire battle. And they took up rather little space; that meant the musketeers could be more densely massed, compensating for lousy accuracy with sheer density of fire as well as the fright effect. And of course an arquebus make a whole lot better club in a pinch than a bow or a crossbow.

Respectable accuracy with even smoothbore muskets is perfectly achievable; after all, they were used by professional hunters too and those folks obviously weren't big on missing their mark. The thing just is that this takes a lot of practice, not in the least due to the habit of round balls shot out of smooth barrels tending to noticeably wander off their original trajectory rather noticeably, and this was something the rank-and-file musketeers of Western armies didn't get. Indeed, marksmanship practice was regarded as waste of costly gunpowder... Skilled shooters were nonetheless often picked out for marksman duties and often used by far more accurate rifled weapons; Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden went so far as to raise a crack unit of marksmen from the gamekeepers of his royal hunting resorts when he went off to the Thirty Years' War.

As for the longbows, one gets a very strong impression they began to be increasingly relegated to what might be politely called "second-line positions" and decreasing in military importance and usefulness from something like mid-late 1400s onwards. I know they were still occasionally seen in the hands of English soldiery around the middle of the 17th century - poor mercenaries abroad who hadn't yet been able to get anything better and poorly equipped levy units mainly - but seem to have been considered indifferent for battlefield use. Personally I'm guessing this was simply due to ever-increasing proliferation of increasingly good armour. Well-padded mail alone can stop arrows launched from even composite bows (which are by far more powerful than self-bows like the English longbow), as well attested from the Crusades (and the fact the assorted composite-bow enthusiast cultures seemed to regard mail as perfectly viable battle gear). Even composite bows, nevermind now self-bows, need to be uncomfortably close by to have a decent chance of penetrating solid plate armour, an obviously challenging prospect on level battlefield but less of a problem for, say, Ottoman naval archers in boarding actions. By middle 1400s in any case just about any troops worth mentioning would be wearing at the very least mail topped with hardened leather or iron in some form or another; the well-equipped warriors would have high-quality tempered-steel articulated full plate. At least the front ranks of pikeman formations were regularly decked out in considerable amounts of solid plate already by the Late Middle Ages and by the 1500s at least a breastplate plus helmet was almost the norm. Thow in developements in field artillery and general improvements in overall military professionalism, discipline, organisation, battlefield command-and-control and tactics (ie. no more blind rushes à la Grecy and Agincourt), and one can see how the longbow found it increasingly difficult to make the cut.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The Longbow was used significantly through the sixteenth century, and still in mass numbers. I would say after the battle of Pinkie in 1547 was when the Longbow was finally being edged out for the gun and that was just due to the fact that it was easier to use and to train men with rather than any advantage in fire power.

I still believe that the artillery used by the French was vital in the reudction of the fortresses in Normandy and Gascony but if we look at the battles near the close of the HYW their was alot more than to it than cannon winning the day. Formingy saw the English outnumbered with inexperience troops from England, attacked on two fronts and adopted an L shaped formation and after an bombardment by two culverins were forced on the attack. Castillon saw the cannon and small arms protected by ditch and pallisade as the French still feared the Longbow in open field.

[luo bin]

This is a good thread where lots of people really have an oppinion. So im going to add mine...

I didnt notice anybody else mention this but Agincourt, the pinacle of English longbowmanship also saw the first ever battle fatality at the hands of gun powder (in europe anyway). For those who forgot/dont know this was by a french canon that fired a vindictive shot at an englishmen as the french army.........pulled back.....In life the longbowman made way for the gun for a number of reasons, most of which have crept up here. Technology moving on, better armour, money (longbows being expensive and needing good wood which is a rarity in england after the navy knocked down all the tress).

Other things were just happening in the world. A longbow in europe was only good if it came from england...but the world is bigger than england and in the end the musket was cheaper and eventually proved much more conveniant.

in MTW this can just be shown by basic armour eventually getting better so that it stops the bow, forcing development of gun troops. faster, more effective fighting by newer infantry regiments too. After agincourt there was no more extensive use of cavalry, they became a bonus feature rather than the main attraction. Why? because the chaps on their own two feet got better organised.

so....

[cannon_fodder]

Crossbows kind of pwned them in effective range too.

What guns did have going for them (aside from issues like ease of use - they weren't much superior to the more accurate and longer-ranged crossbows in that regard either, AFAIK)

Good call on the accuracy of crossbows, but only the heaviest of crossbows that used tension of steel rather than wood (which were introduced late anyway) were longer-ranged than arquebuses. Most medieval crossbows had a far inferior range to a longbow, which itself had a comparable maximum range to an arquebus.

The "effective range" one is tricky. It's been shown that the arquebus was extremely powerful even over long ranges, but I don't know about the crossbow, never read anything about that. I think the longbow's poor effective kill range is a consequence of the necessarily high trajectory and low (compared to a crossbow) draw. I would imagine that due to the lower trajectory and higher power a crossbow would have a much higher effective kill range than a longbow, but I don't know about a comparison to the arquebus. Unless, of course, you're talking about accuracy...

[spacedouthamster]

It has been shown in various historical reenactments by historians and scientists that the longbow was unable to penetrate plate armour, as worn by most knights by the time of the 15th century, they even reckon that the victory at agincourt was due to the fact the arrows killed the knights horses and the riders got trappled into the mud by those following behind.

Therefore by the time muskets become widely available the effectiveness of longbows would be decreased. so longbows pro, fast rof, cheap to train, widely available,

cons, little armour penetration, no scare factor.

firearms pro, effective against all armour, scare enemies

cons, long reload time, don't work in rain, expensive to train.

historically firearms didn't really become popular in england until Henry VIII, even in the wars of the roses at the end of the 15th century only a few cannon were in use.

[Furious Mental]

I'd say longbows are pretty scary if one has to advance through a cloud of arrows. Real life isn't like a Total War game where some programmer designates certain weapons as "scary". If it is effective then it is probably also scary same as if it is novel it is probably also scary.

[econ21]

It has been shown in various historical reenactments by historians and scientists that the longbow was unable to penetrate plate armour, as worn by most knights by the time of the 15th century, they even reckon that the victory at agincourt was due to the fact the arrows killed the knights horses and the riders got trappled into the mud by those following behind.

I'm also sceptical about the ability of longbows to penetrate plate - perhaps they could if they hit at certain points and ranges, but not with the reliability of gunpowder weapons. However, on the specific point of Agincourt - the French advanced dismounted (perhaps partly from fear of what the archers could do to horses) so it was not the arrows killing horses or riders being trappled that explains the victory. It's rather like Cannae or Blenheim - one of those iconic victories that are hard to explain in simplistic terms (in all three some kind of "pressed too close together" penalty would be important). It will be interesting to see how CA model it - hefty experience advantages for the English, plus mud/exhaustion penalties for the French, perhaps?

[rory_20_uk]

Concerning muskets in STW I found them extremely useful when used correctly. Although their accuracy was not great, and rate of fire not that good either, they did slaughter at point blank and scare the enemy. So, at the crest of a hill end of a bridge bieng "greeted" by three units of muskets would inflict massive casualties on any unit type. And since there's so much ammo they'd go on firing again and again, whereas bows quickly ran out.

I thought that Panther tanks had a tendancy to catch on fire - especially in the early models.

[AussieGiant]

sharrukin post explains why the transition from Bows to Muskets occured. To repeat, the main reason was:

The time and effort needed to train a man to weild a bow effectively was far greater than a musket. This simple point meant that over some centuries the long bow was dropped in favour of muskets which allowed "the under six foot and not as strong as an ox men" to participate in ranged war

The minimum physical requirements of a man to be effective "en Mass" with a musket meant that much larger armies could be raised and used effectively.

Both weapons used massed formation to be deadly in battle but as an individual weapon the musket did not reach the level of precision of a Longbow until the advent of rifles in the late 1700's.

Stats:

The average Longbow could be shot between 200 and 300 yards and was accurate as an individual weapon out to 200 yards. Given a man could fire 20 arrows a minute it was deadly.

The average musket (not rifle) of the 1700's, and please note this is some 200 years after the time we are talking about in this game was as follows.

British Smooth Bore musket. Effective range 50 to 70 yards. You would be very lucky to hit a target at 100 yards. MAXIMUM shots per minute by the British (THE BEST AND FASTEST OF THE Napoleonic Era) was 4 shots per minute. The French and other continental armies shot between 2 and 3 per minute maximum.

So you can see that as an individual weapon there is no comparison, and this is with a musket of the 1700's and not the early 1500 or 1600's in which the MTWII is set.

In the late 1700's the British invented the Rifle. Basically the same as as a musket except 5 to 7 grooves were spiraled into the muzzel. This weapon could be aimed effectively out to 200 yards but a marksman and reached recorded shots or 300 yards and more by real experts. due to the grooving of the barrel this weapon could only be fired about 2 times per minute by an expert.

I'd like the recommend two series of books to everyone who wants to learn more about Muskets and Longbows.

If you want to get a great and realistic account of Professional Longbowmen in medieval times read Bernard Cornwells "The Grail Quest" series. Reading about Thomas of Hookton's adventures will get you ready for some real MTWII action in November and December!!

Equally if you want to learn more about muskets and the like, read Bernard Cornwells Sharpe series.

To all the English fella's here he will be well known, and Sean Bean did the character of Richard Sharpe proud

All I can say that Mr Cornwell does an enourmous amount of research to make his novels as historically accurate as possible and you will get a great feel for this subject as a whole by reading his books.

P.S. How CA are going to balance this out will be really interesting!!

[AussieGiant]

I'm also sceptical about the ability of longbows to penetrate plate -

Certainly Econ Bokin arrows may not penerate High end FULL Plate.

But, getting hit 2 or 3 or 4 times per minute, while not killing you outright will render you less than effective. Think of it like individual "supression fire" of a knight

At 100 yards with a relatively flat trajectory;

1st hit RHS Chest; Loud thump, balance momentarily lost...feels like a small horse just kicked you.

2nd hit, Shield; Arrow caught, left arm ripped back violently..no apparent damage.

3rd hit, glancing blow to helmet; head snaps back...and to the left, vision clouds, 2nd degree whiplash sustained.

Distance travelled...40 yards, 60 to go. 3 more hits to take and each one harder than the last.

I'm not saying the Longbow has punched through Plate Armour...but does it really need to?? Once the young French laddie has made it past all that, and he can still stand upright and still knows the name of the girl he spent the night with before the battle, then there are some crazed english physco's wait to cave his skull in with a war hammer.

[CBR]

The average Longbow could be shot between 200 and 300 yards and was accurate as an individual weapon out to 200 yards. Given a man could fire 20 arrows a minute it was deadly.

Could yes could. Its interesting to note that Simon Stanley(one of the few people who shoot strong 160+ pound bows) says he does not like to shoot more than 6 shots/minute. It doesnt take that much practice to shoot 20+ shots/minute but generally its done with lighter 60-70 pound bows AFAIK.

So you can see that as an individual weapon there is no comparison, and this is with a musket of the 1700's and not the early 1500 or 1600's in which the MTWII is set.

There is actually not much difference in quality between 16th century and 19th century muskets. Tests have shown comparable accuracy.

In the late 1700's the British invented the Rifle.

No they introduced a rifle to their own army. Rifles had been used a long time before that.

I'd like the recommend two series of books to everyone who wants to learn more about Muskets and Longbows.

TBH I prefer history books and not works of fiction. I watched Sharpe at Waterloo and if that is representative of the authors historical research then I will put his works in the same category as Braveheart.


CBR

[CBR]

However, on the specific point of Agincourt - the French advanced dismounted (perhaps partly from fear of what the archers could do to horses) so it was not the arrows killing horses or riders being trappled that explains the victory.

The French dismounted because a big mounted attack against a prepared dismounted force of men-at-arms would do them no good, with or without bows to potientially disorder the cavalry.

It will be interesting to see how CA model it - hefty experience advantages for the English, plus mud/exhaustion penalties for the French, perhaps?

Yes most likely lots of valor and from the screenshots I saw about half the infantry were billmen.


CBR

[econ21]

The French dismounted because a big mounted attack against a prepared dismounted force of men-at-arms would do them no good, with or without bows to potientially disorder the cavalry.

Yes, indeed. This partly takes us back to the "myth of the cavalry charge" debate - ie how powerful are cavalry vs infantry. Instinctively, I am on the side that says charging dismounted men-at-arms is not smart, but I know others may disagree. BTW, I was interested to see that M2TW had some dismounted knights with spears - I always thought dismounted knights should have negated the cavalry charge in MTW; maybe I'll get my wish with M2TW.

However, I also think the longbow was also a factor. The knights might be in full plate, but the horses were not. Moreover, cavalry vs steady infantry might just be relatively bloodless Mexican standoff. If the infantry are also backed by lethal missiles, it becomes a very bad situation for the cavalry.

I may be wrong, but it seems that dismounting knights was a particularly favoured tactic of the English (less common with continental armies). Part of the reason for this may have been that the English, almost uniquely, had a significant contingent of longbowmen. There is a synergy between the longbow and anti-cavalry heavy foot: either one alone is not particularly decisive against mounted knights.

[Randarkmaan]

Just one thing I have to add... Dismounted knights and men-at-arms in the late middle-ages often used polearms and would have been effective enough against cavalry if they used those weapons.

[Ulstan]

"The Longbow was used significantly through the sixteenth century, and still in mass numbers. I would say after the battle of Pinkie in 1547 was when the Longbow was finally being edged out for the gun and that was just due to the fact that it was easier to use and to train men with rather than any advantage in fire power."

Then why didn't all the 'elite' units still use longbows if they were a superior weapon?

I can see arming your hastily raised levies with a handgun and 2 weeks of training, but your elite standing army would be armed with the longbow, if it truly was a better weapon.