muskets vs.longbows in MTW2

[Puzz3D]

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.

This has never been in the Total War battle engine. The projectile has constant energy which makes it impossible to properly model the ballistics. If you make the weapon highly effective at short range, it's too effective at long range. If you make the weapon have low effectiveness at long range, it's too weak at short range, although if you balance the morale, then you can get a routing effect at short range.

True, but a bowstring isn't very effective if it gets wet.

In the older battle engine, bows had reduced accuracy in rain. The amount of the reduction depended on how hard it was raining (light, medium or heavy). The range of 120 meters which represented an effective range rather than a maximum range wasn't reduced.

Inadvertently, muskets didn't fire in rain in original STW, but this was changed in WE/MI so that they did. I then was able to measure another effect which was misfires in rain. Light rain had 25% misfires, medium rain 50% misfires and heavy rain 75% misfires.

[satchef1]

CA should just give gunners a production time of 0, it would represent the speed they can be trained at (you could train a full line in the recruitment bar in a single turn).
I did it in M:TW and it worked, gave them a purpose. Ended up using Longbows + Arbalasters for my main forces and Peasant (gave them 0 production time aswell) + Aquibuser armies for emergencies (like faction re-emergences, or getting badly defeated on my borders and needing to reinforce (read: spam) a provence quickly. The Aquibusers would still get ripped to shreads by decent bowmen but thier numbers allowed them some advantage

[ajaxfetish]

"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.

Perhaps this has more to do with the concept of recruitment pools than relative merits. As I understand it, longbow proficiency wasn't something taught in military training, but a skill that had to be trained by constant practice from youth up. Standing armies I believe were still a rather new concept at the times under discussion, and even then would rely on a pool of ready-trained longbowmen, which had been steadily decreasing for a long time. Also, longbowmen were never trained to be an elite. They were trained for cheap mass in the army. They required little armor, no horse, and had low enough social status not to merit decent wages.

Ajax

[AussieGiant]

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

Just a note, I was not talking about the Sharpe TV series, but Sharpe the Books. His account of Waterloo from the point of view of his main character was very good. He even provides historical notes after each book in which he explains and attributes what really happen and how he "placed" his main character for maximum effect. I believe he has visited over 80% of the main battles sites for his books. As far as I can tell from cross referencing histroy he is very accurate.

His books are fiction but they are as historically accurate in setting and accuracy as far I can tell. His only disclaimer is that he is telling a story inside the period he is writing in.

Otherwise thanks for all the clarifications.

A question.

Do you know who invented the Rifling concept? I thought it was the English because as far as I know they were the first to really use the weapon in their standing army.

[Sir Moody]

From a quick google the only thing i can find is the technique of rifling was develope din the 15th century but was very expensive and never made into the hands of Infratry for almost 3 centruries. As for the British rifle i know that the Prussian light infantry were also using rifles at that time and im not sure which started first.

[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."

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.

I think I have answered this in my earlier posts. The practise of archery in England was a long and difficult process with years of training needed to become a good bowman. Although the bow was still used extensively in the North the weapon had long become obsolete in the south. The gun was cheaper, easiier to use and inventually stocked in bigger numbers and the common of law of archery as a pass time that nearly every young male took part in was gradually ingnored and fell into decline

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

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

Cornwall's books are fantastic mate. The series however is rancid to the state on nausea. We all love Bean and back in the day when you were to young to know better it was good. Looking back now it really is as bad as anything you could watch. The acting in the last episode is appalling. The death of his mates hagman and harris at the farm house made me laugh my head off and it still does.

[Sir Moody]

ok found a better article

http://www.history-magazine.com/rifle.html

from this (if its reliable) the Austrians and Prussians were the first to field infatry using Rifled barrels

[AussieGiant]

Yes the Prussians were also using it.

That's correct now you mention it Sir Moody cheers for that.

Anyway my point stands. Not until the late 1700's did any army use rifles in their armies. Only at that stage did the Longbow have an equivalent gunpowder replacement in terms of statistics.

I think everyone gets this now.

In the end, firearms worked and replaced the Longbow because guys who couldn't pull 125lbs back to their ear 10 times a minute could still do some damage with a musket

Additionally the fact that after some months you could get any old conscript to fire 3 shots a minute en mass at a target 70 yards away. You'd have very little chance of doing that using a Longbow and a 175lb raw recruit.

Don't forget the muskets maintenance and production characteristics superseded the Longbow. Especially true once the industrial revolution started poking its head into the equation.

Anyway, I still like the Longbow, so I am really interested in how CA "manages" the early introduction of gunpowder units to the game. At least they did it before some years ago

[Gealai]

Rifling increased the accuracy heavily, but was an more expensive technique and increased the loading time. Thus it was mostly used for hunting rifles, initially just for the richer classes.

The Jaeger units were often drawn - as the name says - from hunters and forestmen and buerger, which were able to equip themselves. Most oft them grew up with hunting also rifled guns.

The french and bavarian suffered in 1809 a lot of smallscale and midscale defeats against Tyrolean Schuetzen which were basically trained militia, many of them hunters or poachers, with a faible for sharpshooting contests. Using ambushes from broken terrain on high ground with accurate riflefire and prepared rockslides they gave the french more than one bloody lesson...


The Japanese said that a gun was supreme in a siege and they had a lot of great archers with arguable equal or better bows than the english..

I'll try to find the exact source of that last quote (comparing gun and bow).

[Wishazu]

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.

The best post in the thread. I agree that a longbow wouldnt need to be able to punch through armour to be effective. At agincourt the arrows flew so thick and into concentrated groups of men that arrows were bound to hit vulnerable points and disorient a target. As to fear effects of weapons, try to imagine standing under a hail of arrows...

[Watchman]

At Agincourt the French actually tried the sensible approach of first clearing the damned archers off the flanks with fast strike troops (ie. cavalry). That failed, but AFAIK mainly because the cavalry wings were badly understrenght from what they were supposed to be (feudal military aristocracy not being famous for strict adherence to discipline or orders, quite a few knights and men-at-arms who were supposed to participate failed to do so). The ground wasn't exactly the best possible either and the stakes the English had erected as an anti-cavalry measure (an increasingly common tactic at the time, it was also used by the Low Countries militias and Ottoman infantry) didn't particularly help either. I've read the horses were only barded at the front to save weight and maintain speed, and did not suffer overmuch from the archery until the cavalry realized the futility of the attempt and turned tail, at which the beasts' rumps became painfully exposed to flying pointy things.

The main body of the French men-at-arms then advanced on foot. This was a perfectly normal tactic at the time. Even elite cavalry notoriously can't really make much of a dent even on commoner militias with shields and spears should the latter hold their line and formation, due to certain peculiar dynamics inherent in how horses (being the skittish herbivores they are at the core) behave when faced with such solid obstacles. Throwing cavalry against highly trained and extremely well equipped heavy infantry who can pretty much be counted not to even blink before shredding the horsemen with their assorted pole-cutlery, like dismounted men-at-arms, would pretty much be throwing them away. In a set-piece battle a typical army of the time normally only kept a small part of its men-at-arms mounted for pursuit duties, strikes directed at possible weaker portions of the enemy line, flanking and suchlike (assorted lighter equipped cavalry would also have been present in almost all instances and typically worked together with the mounted heavies).

Alas, due to certain deficencies feudal troops tended to have in terms of large-unit drill, command-and-control and similar issues of organisation and coordination what the huge number of MAAs present advanced in was really just a huge, unwieldy mob; the commanders could really do very little else with it than point it in the correct direction and hope for the best. The English longbows couldn't really do much real damage against such well-protected troops, many of whom also carried shields, but the constant rain of wood and metal they subjected them to would certainly have been very unnerving (made no less so by the way a random arrow would every now and then find someone's eyeslit or a weak spot in armour if only by raw statistical probability), and no doubt made the French MAAs "bunch up" towards the centre away from the troublesome archers. Which of course did nothing to the manageability and general usefulness of the already haphazard and unwieldy mass.

After trudging over considerable stretch of muddy field (churned up by the horses of the failed flank attacks too), in full armour with the visors down to keep arrows away from faces, in a very crowded and no doubt rather confused mass, the French heavies were naturally enough tired as Hell by the time they reached the waiting line of their fully rested English colleagues. By this time the longbows may also have been able to inflict some actual damage by firing directly into the ranks at close range, but in any case the column had little momentum left and kind of got stuck against the English heavies. The rear ranks trying to push forward (and/or get further away from the increasingly pesky archers at the flanks) would not have helped matters any.

Then to boot the longbowmen at the flanks put aside their bows, grabbed assorted mallets and axes and swords and whatever ironmongery they now had available, and pulled a double envelopement. Now, head one even stone dead tired MAAs would no doubt have torn just about any number of the lightly equipped archers to bits in hand-to-hand combat; they were highly trained and very well equipped experts on the field after all, whereas the archers were neither. But attacking the flanks of a confused, tired mass the bowmen, nimble on the muddy ground in their light equipement, were quite lethal enough to ensure the main French heavy column was history.

Remember: the longbow was never a true battle-winning weapon. Rather its efficient and judicious use, and the considerable shortcomings of the French military system (still based on feudal levies, whereas the English armies on the Continent were more professional "state mercenaries"), allowed the English to triumph even at severe numerical disadvantage with field armies consisting to a large part of the "cheap and cheerful" archers and for the period fairly small numbers of the very expensive men-at-arms. The longbowmen couldn't really do all that much damage to the enemy heavy troops, but they could affect, distrupt and channel their movements so their own heavies could better deal with them, as well as cause heavy damage to the assorted lighter support troops. What really tilted the balance in French favour was not finding a "miracle weapon" of their own in artillery - although that certainly didn't hurt - but rather modernizing the military system to do what its commanders needed and wanted it to rather than what the rank-and-file of feudal warrior aristocracy were capable of and felt like doing.

It should also be kept in mind that even armies based on horse-archers wielding the by far more powerful reflex composite bow tended to make a point of having at least small detachements of heavy shock cavalry at their disposal. Even for such forces the ability to smash weakened enemy formations through shock action and mounting immediate pursuit (and of course countering such attempts from enemy heavies) seems to have been if nothing else a good way to dispose of the remnants of the enemy, instead of spending God knows how long pouring arrows at their slowly dwindling shieldwalls.


The technique of rifling barrels to spin-stabilize musket balls was known very early on, AFAIK. I've read the idea was derived from the fletching used in arrows to impart similar gyrostabilization. However, for the rifling to be effective the ball had to fit tightly into the barrel, which duly made reloading muzzle-loaders in general and long-arms in particular something of a challenge. I've read estimates, based on contemporary accounts, that a standard smoothbore musket with loose-fitting balls took about half a minute to reload (more experienced men were faster); a rifle took roughly double that or more. Thus, rifles in military use were by and large confined to sharpshooters and small elite units of marksmen (they typically hunted down enemy officers, standard-bearers, musicians and C^2 specialists aside from plain old skirmishing); the line infantry blasted off volleys of rather inaccurate smoothbore musketry at rather short ranges, their formations essentially acting as giant shotguns.

Might as well. Unstabilized spherical projectiles, of somewhat questionable shape and bouncing off the walls of the barrel every this way and that before clearing it, are about as ballistically sucky as anything you can fire out of a gun can get. Not only does the shape of the ball give it some serious air-resistance drag, its random spin does nothing to improve its energy retention. Most pistols, for example, actually had muzzle velocities in the supersonic range, comparable to modern 9mm (their typical bore size was in the 13-15mm range). But they could not be counted on to penetrate armour from further than about 5-10 meters away, and were next to useless against anything at ranges over 15 meters or so; that's some serious energy loss there.

Even balls from long-barreled muskets, should they actually hit, at long range have been described by contemporaries as feeling like "strong blows" that merely bruised through clotches.

Conversely balls spin-stabilized by rifled barrels, while still suffering from poor aerodynamics, at least had a stable spin around their flight path and flew straight. They were both accurate and effective at markedly greater distances - some rifled cavalry pistols were actually meant to counter enemy skirmishers (these often had detachable stocks), and Prince Rupert (of the English Civil War fame) reputedly once shot a weathercock off a bell tower with his rifled wheellock pistols to win a bet.

Given the rather considerable shortcomings of balls as projectiles it's actually kind of weird that the by far more effective conical bullet wasn't developed before mid-1800s...

[AussieGiant]

Nice Post Watchman.

Can I ask what your profession is?

[Wishazu]

He watches things :) mostly the History Channel by the look of it

[AussieGiant]

LOL Wishazu.

He sure does watch things.

By the way thanks for the compliment before.

This has certainly been a good thread. Lot's of ideas and points have been made.

I certainly believe the Longbow is "as advertised", if not a bit more when everything is taken into account.

I can't believe we are only 2 months to the day away from seeing this game in action.

[Vladimir]

You forgot to mention who developed the "mini ball".

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Wishazu]

LOL Wishazu.

By the way thanks for the compliment before.

I can't believe we are only 2 months to the day away from seeing this game in action.

No worries mate. Your post made me laugh out loud whilst reading it :)

M2TW looks set to be alot of the things that we all hoped RTW would be :)

[cannon_fodder]

Might as well. Unstabilized spherical projectiles, of somewhat questionable shape and bouncing off the walls of the barrel every this way and that before clearing it, are about as ballistically sucky as anything you can fire out of a gun can get. Not only does the shape of the ball give it some serious air-resistance drag, its random spin does nothing to improve its energy retention. Most pistols, for example, actually had muzzle velocities in the supersonic range, comparable to modern 9mm (their typical bore size was in the 13-15mm range). But they could not be counted on to penetrate armour from further than about 5-10 meters away, and were next to useless against anything at ranges over 15 meters or so; that's some serious energy loss there.

http://www.rdg.ac.uk/engin/home/mate.../AW_poster.jpg
Check that out. Supposing they're talking about point-blank shots with each weapon (if they're not, it only aids my arguement), you're suggesting that the ball loses about 30% of its energy during the first 15m of its 400m journey. I know that drag would reduce with velocity, but that seems rather unlikely to me. You can also take into account the fact that a ball that does not have the power to kill will still horribly maim.

[AussieGiant]

No worries mate. Your post made me laugh out loud whilst reading it :)

M2TW looks set to be alot of the things that we all hoped RTW would be :)

Hi Wishazu,

It seemed like a worth while attempt at inserting some attempt at a eral example of what might happen.

I hope and pray it will be a great game when it is released. I really hope patches deal with a few minor issues.

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya has yearned for the days of the Wet Gunny Wedgie of Doom! Now, the WGWD shall return and mop the fields of battle with their scalps again!

To improve morale, Vanya will introduce bald generals wearing toupees. This will allow them to not "die" when losing their hair. Funny how mere mortals worry about such vain things as "hair" and "keeping a head on their shoulders". If nothing else, it should provide some comic relief to the soon-to-be-damned to see a general fumble with fake hair!

GAH!

[R'as al Ghul]

[..] GAH!

Thanks for posting. Good to see you back....

[Bagpuss]

This thread has been a pleasure to read ,cheers

can I just add I do like the History channel on Sky ,lol an see nothing wrong in their excellent medieval war progs like Master of Defense ,Weapons That Made Britain, etc
an I think it was that barmy but good historian guy Mike loades that proved that the Longbow arrow could easily piece the French armour ,if chainmail underneath the shock /impact could kill as well...

[maestro]

I saw that, too. I've definitely seen programs on the telly with people shooting through leather, mail and plate armour from considerable distances with longbows.

No idea about muskets, though....... if only they had a Desert Eagle

[ElectricEel]

I've definitely seen programs on the telly with people shooting through leather, mail and plate armour from considerable distances with longbows.

Most of the mail around nowadays is massively inferior in quality to the mail that would be found on a medieval battlefield. Wikipedia has this to say about modern mail usage:

Mail is now used in protective clothing for butchers (against meat-packing equipment), scuba divers (against shark teeth) and animal control officers (against animal teeth). The British police use mail gloves for dealing with knife-armed aggressors. The military also uses mail vests for the same reason. Modern re-enactors of medieval battles and living history also use mail in combat.

In the little combat use that mail armor sees nowadays, it is not required to deflect anything more dangerous than knives or animal teeth. In re-enactment, the re-enactors are either using fake weapons not designed to kill, or following a strict coreography in order to avoid maiming each other. Good-quality mail requires more time and effort to make than poor-quality mail, and understandably, most people and organizations are not willing to pay for good-quality mail when they can get a cheaper product that is adequate for their purproses. Good-quality mail is thus mostly made for wealthier re-enactors who want to pay extra to use something as close to the real armor as possible. The demand there is limited, thus little good-quality mail is produced. As a consequence, it can be hard to get hold of, and because of this, and often lacking expertise on the subject, the people doing the tests usually end up using poor-quality armor. This should be true for plate armour, as well. I will note that at least one History Channel program that included tests like this has used butted mail, which is greatly inferior in every aspect compared to good-quality riveted mail that would have been used by knights throughout the medieval period.

In addition, usually mail was worn over padding. The padding might be easily penetrated by an arrow when worn alone, and an arrow might penetrate mail significantly, but tests indicate that when they are worn together, the arrow imparts a sufficiently large part of its energy to the mail that the padding may offer enought resistance to stop it from penetrating significantly. This fits in with the contemporary accounts of numerous arrows sticking from mail-clad soldiers. Again, good-quality padding consisting of numerous layers of cloth is probably rather difficult to find in the modern world.

[Freedom Onanist]

It seems to me that in all these discussions of the usefulness of the Longbow the salient point has been overlooked. What is indisputable is that English armies used the longbow in large numbers throughout the period of the Hundred Years war and beyond (War of the Roses). It was a mainstay of the weapons mix. They must have seen some value in it beyond many of the incidental effects mentioned in this thread, they must have know they were on to something good. The fact that they were used in such large numbers argues for the fact that the English DID see these weapons as battle winning devices. And after all they were there, putting their trust in the abilities of the weapon to deliver on the day. If the only effect of a longbow arrow was to deliver a hefty punch would the arrow heads be of the bodkin variety and not of a blunter form which would have been easier and cheaper to produce whilst (arguably) delivering more shock energy? It seems to me dubious to argue that people who had direct and real experience of the longbow would invest so much trust and resource in it otherwise of a period of several centuries. I don't exactly see what the argument can be? The English introduced a major change to the usual weapons mix of medieval armies, following this the effectiveness of their armies increased dramatically. I am not denying there were many other factors at play, but I don't think the causal link can be denied.

[maestro]

Electric Eel, whilst what you say is, indeed true. Nowhere did anyone mention TV programs testing longbows against modern mail and armour. I've seen plenty of programs on UKTV History and the History Channel and the such like with proper, anal historians recreating armour of all kind using medieval methods and then dressing up a medieval straw dummy in the armour and shooting at it with medieval weapons.

Whilst I agree with everything you say, it's kind of a moot point in this circumstance cause I've definitely seen it done on telly with "the real McCoy"

[Freedom Onanist]

Back to the topic of longbow v firearms. To me there can be little doubt that a unit of Longbowmen would decimate any arquebus/musket opponent. Rate of fire, range and accuracy (rifling not withstanding) are all on the bow's side. The question then is why did England abandon them? Well, as ha been pointed out they didn't entirely for quite some time (even Drake had some in the 1570's). However, the Hundred Years war and the subsequent War of the Roses especially had a serious impact on English society in terms of its ability to provide trained archers. Handguns really made their full impact in a period when England was recuperating from these and dealing with such internal upheavals as the Reformation. Luckily for England its continental neighbours were more occupied with their own disputes to look much its way. By the time England re-emerges onto the European scene as it where there is no longer an archer recruitment pool available. Expediency dictated the use of handguns.

[LadyAnn]

GAH!

Vanya has yearned for the days of the Wet Gunny Wedgie of Doom! Now, the WGWD shall return and mop the fields of battle with their scalps again!

To improve morale, Vanya will introduce bald generals wearing toupees. This will allow them to not "die" when losing their hair. Funny how mere mortals worry about such vain things as "hair" and "keeping a head on their shoulders". If nothing else, it should provide some comic relief to the soon-to-be-damned to see a general fumble with fake hair!

GAH!

Weeeeeeee Vanya!

We prefer that the enemies shave their head clean so we could do a clean chop.

Anniep

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Cavalry vs Longbow -> Patay

More Cavalry vs Longbow, with initial artillery skirmish -> Formigny

Artillery & Musket vs Longbow -> Castillon
Was Castillon position prepared by the French? Sure, but so was Agincourt...

All that by the Mid XVth century...

Louis,

[Beirut]

At Agincourt the French actually tried the sensible approach of first clearing the damned archers off the flanks with fast strike troops (ie. cavalry). That failed, but AFAIK mainly because the cavalry wings were badly understrenght from what they were supposed to be (feudal military aristocracy not being famous for strict adherence to discipline or orders, quite a few knights and men-at-arms who were supposed to participate failed to do so).

Something I just read was that when King Henry ordered his army closer to the French, to goad them into attacking, the French cavalry did not charge the archers in the vulnerable stage of removing their sharpened stakes from the ground, carrying them forward, and putting them back in the ground. Total negligence on the part of the French. They waited until the stakes where all planted and the archers in formation. A fatal error.

The English longbows couldn't really do much real damage against such well-protected troops, many of whom also carried shields, but the constant rain of wood and metal they subjected them to would certainly have been very unnerving (made no less so by the way a random arrow would every now and then find someone's eyeslit or a weak spot in armour if only by raw statistical probability).

Couldn't the Bodkin points on the longbow arrows penetrate French armour? Also, just as a point of interest, I read the English killed a great many French soldier with head shots.