muskets vs.longbows in MTW2

[ajaxfetish]

As I understand it, the arrows (w/ iron heads) would only penetrate steel armor if they hit it at a vulnerable point such as the joints between pieces. The headshots I imagine would be hitting unfortunate soldiers who raised their visors for a better view, since the visor hampered both visibility and breathing, but also protected a fairly vital part of the body. As Watchman said, the effect of the barrage should have had a serious detrimental effect on French morale, and combined w/ the incredibly muddy ground, the suction of said mud against plate surfaces, and crowd dynamics as the French body got squeezed into a steadily narrowing funnel, led to the debacle that followed.

Ajax

[Tempiic]

English longbows are so overrated if not overhyped. ;)


Still I find myself quite agreeing with ajaxfetish' and Watchman's points.

[Kalle]

The rise of muscets over (long)bows and crossbow have more to do with
1) Economy (muscets great potential for protoindustrial manufacturing, correct resources easier to come across and so on)
2) Centralisation of power (the kings or whoever ruled wrestled power from their feudal lords more and more and needed standing armies of bigger and bigger size requiring "mass"production of weapons)
3) and possibly a belief in some sort of progress and science, (if you dont start use and produce this new weapon maybe in the future you would be totally obsolete)

Trainingtime (a thing that can be questioned, put anyone in front of a bow or a muscet who did not see them before and you will be able to use the bow before the muscet) and slight diffrences in accuracy and or reloadtime are secondary issues in this thing. If it was a question of reloadtime and accuracy the bow would never have been replaced.

Kalle

[Temujin]

The English introduced a major change to the usual weapons mix of medieval armies

They really didn't. The English had great archers, so they focused on them to reinforce success. But English longbowmen did not popularize archery tactics in the rest of Europe. Sure, the french made a half-assed attempt to copy them with their own archer corps, but they didn't have the troops to pull it off, and never really abandoned their cavalry-focused tactics.
Compare the influence of English archery to that of Swiss pike-formations in the late medieval/renaissance; now there's a major change.

To me there can be little doubt that a unit of Longbowmen would decimate any arquebus/musket opponent.

Any? No matter the other qualities of the soldiers involved? I think not. Longbowmen could be as green, cowardly, de-motivated and skittish as any other soldiers, and they demonstrated this in numerous battles.

Wargamers have an unfortunate tendency to focus too much on the "hard", constant factors, such as equipment, in their discussions, I think. Contemporary commentators rarely mention equipment details. When speaking of the English, they don't use the term "Longbowmen", they call them "Archers", because that's how they saw them; as common archers of uncommon proficiency. That the English variety of archers should be something entirely different (a different "troop-type") is a wargaming convention, invented by games designers that are too eager to put fighting men in neat little boxes to make representing them in their games easier. In reality, the draw-weight of your bow and the shape of your arrowheads were completely insignificant details compared to morale, motivation, training-levels, fatigue, discipline, leadership, tactics and circumstance.

[Watchman]

I wouldn't vouch for that last part. A weapon system that just plain cannot fulfill an important battlefield function - and the short hunting bow fairly commonly used did not against armoured enemies - is not going to play a very prominent role period, not in the least because there's little point in expending resources on it. The feudal levy invariably turned up a number of fellows handy with a bow or sling (commonly used by shepherds and the like to chase off wild animals, and by children to keep birds from dining too brashly in the fields), and those skills were naturally put to use (I've read slings were particularly useful in sieges, being able to seriously injure even through helmets which were obviously what you mostly saw of the defenders behind the crenellations); but their effectiveness on the battlefield against decently equipped soldiery, or rather lack thereof, did not warrant any further effort on the topic.

The crossbow, longbow and in the East the composite bow were however another story, and promising enough that serious soldiers put an effort into refining them and the higher-ups became interested in exterting the effort and resources to have them available.

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.

...which smacks of discipline issues. If half the people supposed to take part in the cavalry action hadn't even turned up to the banners the formations would hardly have yet been in the state to mount an effective attack, all the more so as many of those present no doubt voiced (sensible) doubts about the point of sallying forth with so comparatively few men. By the time these things had been sorted out and the troops organized and formed up the opportunity to move against the English in the middle of redeployement would have been long gone.

'Course, had the English seen the French begin to move they'd no doubt stopped on their tracks and promptly re-planted their stakes - probably not too time-consuming a process given the softness of the wet ground - and gone to work with their bows. Cavalry advancing in formation have to maintain a comparatively slow pace to keep the ranks intact and to avoid tiring the horses and the soft ground would have slowed them down even further, so catching the English "pants down" may well have been impossible to begin with anyway.

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.

Not with any degree of reliability except at point-blank range. Even humble mail can stop arrows from the much more powerful composite bows at longer ranges, and do not for a moment think the people using those bows did not have access to all conceivable types of specialized arrowheads the English had ever dreamt of and then some. By Agincourt the harness of a fully equipped man-at-arms was up to the standards of Eastern cataphracts - and those fellows had been conceived to ride through enemy missile fire with impunity and hack them apart in close combat (well, quite a few of the eastern heavies carried bows too and could thus simply out-live most archers in a firefight, but that's a bit beside the point) in parts of the world absolutely crawling with good recurve composite bows and people skilled at using them.

I'll reiterate this: if you assumed the English archers could cut fully equipped men-at-arms down at range, then how would you explain the fact the French heavies were pretty much always able to reach their English counterparts in a condition where the latter still had to work for their money to drive them away ?

The longbow wasn't a battle-winning weapon. It merely made it possible for the English to win with fewer of the expensive men-at-arms and other heavy close-combat troops, and as a bonus was - like any missile weapon with decent range - quite useful in sieges.

Ditto for the crossbow, although given that at their prime the Italian urban armies that could take on any and all comers were mostly crossbowmen screened by a thin crust of armoured militia spearmen and a smattering of often relatively light cavalry, actually even better at it when used correctly.

I presume the composite bow, especially when employed from horseback, did win battles pretty much by itself, but AFAIK in practice that only happened in battles between armies of light cavalry (ie. nomads) and even then shock action was normally used to finish things - nevermind now the invariable presence of armoured elite cavalry primarily detailed for shock duties.

Conversely the pike, at least used in the aggressive and mobile fashion the Swiss made popular (the static Scottish schiltroms having proven to be arrow-fodder), was a "decisive" weapon - while in practice pike armies always included missile troops and cavalry, in principle they would have been able to win battles pretty much solely with their long pointy sticks.
But then again, when you combine them with maneuver pikes are shock weapons. That's one thing the Hellenics apparently never got right back in the day.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

'Course, had the English seen the French begin to move they'd no doubt stopped on their tracks and promptly re-planted their stakes - probably not too time-consuming a process given the softness of the wet ground - and gone to work with their bows. Cavalry advancing in formation have to maintain a comparatively slow pace to keep the ranks intact and to avoid tiring the horses and the soft ground would have slowed them down even further, so catching the English "pants down" may well have been impossible to begin with anyway.

Catching the English pants down has been done in Patay, they had no time to hide behind stakes and were badly defeated. Hardly an impossible scenario.

Louis,

[Watchman]

Well, we're talking the face-off at Agincourt here. And the French having organisational issues.

[ProudNerd]

I really hope guns are of use in MTW thy look and sound really cool expect for the noticble bug where the rear line only starts reloading after the front has fired make their rate of fire even slower than it has to be.

In MTW I though the same they looked and sounded cool but they were just so painfully useless. They could fire from a few feet away and get about three kills, they fired far too slowly t skirmish and they were truly awful in melee which was compounded by the fact they had to be so close to shoot.

[ProudNerd]

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

Not only that, longbows took a long time to make. The wood had to be dried for something like four years and a selfbow style longbow took something like 20 hours to craft and then there was the need for a pool of very experienced archers. The loss of longbow men on war would have been crippling blow that would have take years to recover from. I think it was at patay where a great number of them were massacred. That probably when a long way in England losing that war.

[Censor]

I really hope guns are of use in MTW thy look and sound really cool expect for the noticble bug where the rear line only starts reloading after the front has fired make their rate of fire even slower than it has to be.

In MTW I though the same they looked and sounded cool but they were just so painfully useless. They could fire from a few feet away and get about three kills, they fired far too slowly t skirmish and they were truly awful in melee which was compounded by the fact they had to be so close to shoot.

I have not played MTW, but the musketeers do seem to be of some use in the Battle of Pavia. During the initial cavalry charge, the french lose about 10 men from each cavalry wing simultaneously, stopping the impetus of the charge significantly or slightly at times. The reloading times are what really diminish the effectiveness of the musketeers. Arquebusiers are even worse, they seem to lack stopping power, I usually get around 10 kills out of each unit in a battle.

[Temujin]

I wouldn't vouch for that last part. A weapon system that just plain cannot fulfill an important battlefield function - and the short hunting bow fairly commonly used did not against armoured enemies - is not going to play a very prominent role period, not in the least because there's little point in expending resources on it. The feudal levy invariably turned up a number of fellows handy with a bow or sling

My point is that there were skilled archers, other than English, in Europe at the time who did manage to be effective without longbows (Charles the Bold's Savoyards, for example). Conversely, there were plenty of examples of longbow-armed troops (English or otherwise) being an embarrasment on the field.

I don't see much evidence that longbows outright changed the battlefield role of the soldiers equipped with them. They still fought as massed archers, like Savoyard and Byzantine archers equipped with other types of bow. Indeed, the quality of the longbows is just another factor in efficiency, and a smaller one than the quality of the soldier, I would say.

Professional troops had better equipment, sure, but passing that equipment on to poor quality levies would not have changed their quality significantly, or changed their role in battle.

[Basilios II Voulgaroktonos]

My point is that there were skilled archers, other than English, in Europe at the time who did manage to be effective without longbows.

If we reached the point of doughting about the efficiency of the longbow and the quality of the english longbowmen,WHERE IS THIS WORLD GOING?come on guys the english longbowmen where the best medieval archers and in every battle that the english did they where the key to win.we can'tcompare them to other common archers of the time.maybe only the byzantine archers could in some way be compared to them but by the time the empire lost its strengh also lost and the good archers too!!!

[Tempiic]

Any mentioning of English Longbows used in battle that I have encountered have been against the French, Irish and Scotts. I cannot recall any accounts of English Longbows (or even archers) during the Crusades, while I see no reason to think they were simply not present. Such accounts might be present, as I am not a professional historical researcher myself, but their fame has only been against the Scotts and French, which werent well known for their archery.

No I think I will rather go for archers in the middle east of Arab, Iranian, Armenian, Greek or Turkish origin, regardless whether they fought for Islam or the Byzantines, both mounted as well as on foot.

[CBR]

Since "longbow" is a term from the 16th century that might be the explanation why you "cannot recall any accounts of English Longbows (or even archers) during the Crusades"

King Richard I had both archers and crossbows with him in his crusade. And the English mostly fought against Scots and French anyway.


CBR

[Tempiic]

I did not say he did not had english archers with him, it is just that I did not ready any accounts of special mentions of their capabilities unlike english archers against the French or Scotts. ;)

[LadyAnn]

What she meant may be that facing the armies who are used to fight with bows, the english archers were never mentioned as the determining factor.

Another way to phrase it: Agincourt is the failure of the French Men-At-Arms and Heavy Cavalry to win over predominently Archers English army, not the triumph of the archers over heavy infantry and cavalry. I am not saying that heavy infantry should automatically win over archers, pointing out Agincourt as the counter example. I would give another example: Saladin army won over well armored Cruisaders.

But to give English archers, the Longbowmen, a stat (and allow upgrades) such that they could fight at par with Men-at-Arms and win in melee is a travesty.

eh, she did reply faster than I :P

[CBR]

I did not say he did not had english archers with him, it is just that I did not ready any accounts of special mentions of their capabilities unlike english archers against the French or Scotts. ;)

What type of capabilities of bows in battles against Scots or French are you thinking about?


CBR

[Tempiic]

I am not sure what you mean with your question CBR

[LadyAnn]

How about this: Scotts vs. English, it was mentioned that Scotts got decimated by arrows, as they stood the ground on a small hill the whole day. French vs. English: the archers could kill the Men-at-Arms "with their hammer" as the latter are tangled in a mass. But during the crusades, the Western bows were never mentioned as superior or a decisive actor in any victory.

Oh, and I forgot, it was not mentioned that the French were killed by arrows from a far (the so called longbow range superiority). The French were massacred during Agincourt battle when they were very close to the English line, piled up, ready to be shot or hammered.

[CBR]

Ah well first of all numbers archers and crossbows means a lot for how much effect they have and the type of opponent and tactics used. Its my impression that crossbows were used more than bows during the crusades: in one case just seeing the crossbowmen starting to load made an Arab force retreat. AFAIK crossbows and archers were quite good against horsearchers. Decisive? Forcing an enemy to keep away and shoot at far range is not gonna break an enemy but it certainly is nice.

So one has to think about the differences in the battles, when crusader style battles involved one side who consisted mainly of light cavalry and then versus a stationary force of Scot infantry. Plus you can find HYW battles where not much positive is mentioned about the archers so it varies from battle to battle.


CBR

[LadyAnn]

My point was that ... longbows are overhyped, overrated :) Oops, that's already said somewhere :0)

Annie

[CBR]

Annie I certainly dont believe in the hype either.


CBR

[LadyAnn]

Thus my comment was not directing to you, CBR :)

[CBR]

with you and Tempiic!


CBR

[antiwup]

longbowmen TOOK FOREVER TO TRAIN WHILE MUSKETS CAN BE GIVEN TO A BUNCH OF IDIOTS TAUGHT HOW TO LOAD AND FIRE IN MINUTES AND ARE COMBAT READY. HOWEVVER MANY DECADES THE ENGLISH WHERE UNABLE TO WITHSTAND THE FURY OF THE HIGHLAND CHARGE UNTILL THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLUG BAYONET BOTH CANT STAND IN A HAND TO HAND FIGHT.

[Kalle]

longbowmen TOOK FOREVER TO TRAIN WHILE MUSKETS CAN BE GIVEN TO A BUNCH OF IDIOTS TAUGHT HOW TO LOAD AND FIRE IN MINUTES AND ARE COMBAT READY.

Statements such as these are made everywhere this topic is discussed and that is not a rare discussion either at this forum or at .com or wherever.

I would like you to point me to a firsthand source that says it take for ever to learn to shoot a bow and another that states that musqeteers become an effective battleweapon as soon as you hand the muskets out.

Thank you in advance.

Kalle

[Comrade Alexeo]

I'll quietly interject here, as I've used both a bow and a musket before...

Any idiot can figure out how to work a bow - you pull the string back and then let go of it!

Anyone who's ever tried this also knows that this proves almost impossible to do well when you put it to the test. You drop the arrow, it bounces off the string, you can't pull the string back because it requires too much pull, your arrow goes flying forty feet directly to your left or plops 6 inches in front of you...

If you've ever managed to pull off a bullseye, or at least get your arrow to fly in a vaguely straight manner with enough distance on it that you actually have to sorta look for it, then here's a balloon for you



None of you are going to get my balloon, though, because none of you have done it or will ever do it. Ever. I don't care what you say, because it's bull.

And that's with modern bows, too, not a longbow. That's like comparing a water pistol to a bazooka.

Longbowmen had to train for years to really have any actual skill with their weapons. They started as kids with little bows shooting at clumps of dirt, and as they grew up they started using the Big Daddy bows. Luckily for the English, for the most part skill was not required - sending big levies of peons against gradually diminishing groups of irreplacable French knights was good enough. So long as you got the swarm of arrows in the general vicinity of the enemy, well, that was good enough. That's not to say that some longbowmen were likely the match of any Eastern archer in terms of skill - I've heard that longbowmen in some sieges actually shot through the arrow slits of castle towers to hit the defensers - but the majority of them surely were not.

Longbowmen weren't so much uber-fighters as they were cost-effective ones; you could have bunches of the guys any time you needed them ready to deal some damage. But the time it takes to train people how to use them in a semi-organized fashion, and the time needed to create a good longbow - years in both cases - meant that something else would be still more preferable.

Enter crossbows. Once again, any idiot can figure this out - pull the trigger, place the bolt and wind it up, then pull the trigger - only this time there's less margin for error because a crossbow doesn't require as much arm strength. It's also easier to aim by its very nature, and so can be very accurate even in the hands of your typical villager.

So, why arquebuses and muskets? I mean, they have these complicated loading sequences with 40 zillion steps, they have a tendency to misfire or even explode, and they're wildly inaccurate?

BANG!

That's why. Never, ever, ever underestimate the psychological effect of a bunch of very loud objects pointed at you. Especially one's that have nice big flashes of flame and spew smoke. Especially in a very religious age.

There's a common misconception that a musket takes a long time to load, and they certainly do by the standards of, say, an M-16, and that the process is complicated, and it certainly is by the standards of, say, an AK-47. But you have to ignore these bits.

In just two drill sessions with my buddies who do Civil War (I'm an extra body ), in what amounts to a total of, oh, I dunno, 8 hours of drilling, I could already load a musket in my sleep. And yes, a percussion musket is vastly simpler than earlier flintlocks and matchlocks... so they take, oh, 12 hours. And, sure, they take a while to load, but once you get into the motions, its not so arduous; the wasted time generally comes from your officer not having given the command yet.

You have to get out of the mindset that casualties=morale loss. That's true in both the TW world and the real world, but it's vastly more true in the TW games, because, no matter how good the CA guys are (and good they are, I assure you), they can't fully replicate the mindset of a soldier, much less thousands of them. They have to approximate it to create a funner, more obvious sequence of events, because otherwise battles would just be mindless slogs.

Imagine it...

You're marching towards the enemy line with 50 of your buddies. Officers are shouting out orders, men are psyching themselves up for the battle, metal is clanking and feet are pounding, music is blaring in the background...

FWIT!

GAH!

Suddenly, 17 comrades collapse after being hit by the enemy arrows. But you're for the most part unaware. You can't see them, and you can just barely hear their muffled screams over everything else, and it's not enough to shake you from your battle rush as you move towards the enemy line...

BANG!

The enemy! Where the bloody hell is the enemy? They've disappeared into a cloud of smoke - smoke that smells like sulfur, like the very fires of Hell! Your ears are ringing from the deafening noise. You've gone from hearing everything to hearing nothing in an instant. In a literal flash, you've just lost your two primary senses, your awareness of the battle. Now what?


Gar, where was I? Hmm... the point I'm trying to make is this:

None of these weapons is ideal, either in M2TW or in the real world. Indeed, armies were constantly experimenting with the correct proportion of pikemen to crossbowmen to handgunners during this period; they knew that each had its own place, but they just weren't sure who took precedence.

The same applies to M2TW. Traditional archers and crossbowmen (if they can fire flaming arrows) are probably the best castle-defenders, if only because they can set things on fire. But once gunpowder rolls around, you'll find your castles growing more and more ineffective, so now you might want to fight the enemy in the field.

There's various combinations here:

1 general
10 pike units
3 longbow/archer units
3 gunner units
3 crossbowmen units

This combo gives you everything, but perhaps not enough of anything. You can engage well at any range, and have good protection thanks to your pikemen, but if the enemy has more ranged units your ranged units might not be able to kill enough of the enemy before they rip your pikemen to shreds...

Hmmm, let's try...

1 general
2 heavy cavalry units
8 pikemen units
3 longbow/archer units
3 gunner units
3 crossbowmen units

Now you have cavalry to protect from other cavalry and to run down enemy ranged units... or, perhaps, get blasted into oblivion since there's not enough of them...

Gar, one moment...

1 general
4 heavy cavalry units
6 pikemen units
3 longbow/archer units
3 gunner units
3 crossbowmen units

Aha! Now you can run down and crush the enemy ranged units! But wait - the enemy artillery is destroying your pikemen, and now they won't be able to stand up to the enemy infantry!

1 general
2 artillery units
4 heavy cavalry units
4 pikemen units
3 longbow/archer units
3 gunner units
3 crossbowmen units

Bye-bye enemy artillery! And goodbye victory, since now your army has become so diluted that it can't do anything except smile and wave at death!

Maybe if you fiddled around with your ranged units...?



Oh bah... this is ridiculous. If you figure it out, could you do me a favor?

Call Machiavelli. I'm sure he'd love to see what you think...

[Kalle]

Any idiot can figure out how to work a bow - you pull the string back and then let go of it!

Yes.

Anyone who's ever tried this also knows that this proves almost impossible to do well when you put it to the test. You drop the arrow, it bounces off the string, you can't pull the string back because it requires too much pull, your arrow goes flying forty feet directly to your left or plops 6 inches in front of you...

Is there something wrong with your hands?? Sorry but this make no sence at all. Even my sisters kids can shoot in the correct direction. Not even in my very first attempt as a young toddler did I manage to shoot 40 feet directly to my left.

Hitting bullseye at a long range is another matter but that is most certanly true with firearms as well, modern or historical. Dont believe me well watch the olympics next time it comes up.

If a bow is so hard to handle one can also ask oneself how it has been so widely used and popular from ancient times and onwards. Makes no sence at all...

None of you are going to get my balloon, though, because none of you have done it or will ever do it. Ever. I don't care what you say, because it's bull.

And that's with modern bows, too, not a longbow. That's like comparing a water pistol to a bazooka.

Maybe. but for all you and I know there could be lots of people doin archery here. As a matter of fact I believe the possibilities for that is high. Anyways hitting bullseye at long range wasnt the primary use of the bow even back in the good old days, more on this further down.

Longbowmen had to train for years to really have any actual skill with their weapons.

To have any real skill with a missile weapon you need to practise regularaly, this goes for firearms aswell. Basically its true for whatever activity you are doing.

In just two drill sessions with my buddies who do Civil War (I'm an extra body ), in what amounts to a total of, oh, I dunno, 8 hours of drilling, I could already load a musket in my sleep. And yes, a percussion musket is vastly simpler than earlier flintlocks and matchlocks... so they take, oh, 12 hours. And, sure, they take a while to load, but once you get into the motions, its not so arduous; the wasted time generally comes from your officer not having given the command yet.

In just one drillsession of about 5 minutes I know how to load a bow
About officers not giving commands in time, are you talking about your officer in your "game" or about all officers throughout history?? Or are you really trying to claim that loading a muscet is done faster then loading a bow had it not been for the bad officers for muscetregiments that all forgot to issue orders??

You have to get out of the mindset that casualties=morale loss. That's true in both the TW world and the real world, but it's vastly more true in the TW games, because, no matter how good the CA guys are (and good they are, I assure you), they can't fully replicate the mindset of a soldier, much less thousands of them. They have to approximate it to create a funner, more obvious sequence of events, because otherwise battles would just be mindless slogs.

Yes, Im sure we all know this is a game. However Im pretty sure they do just as good as You when it comes to replicating the mindset of a soldier.

So long as you got the swarm of arrows in the general vicinity of the enemy, well, that was good enough.

Im nitpicky of course but the general vicinity wouldnt win you any battle. However this is true. Bullseye was not what was aimed for. You aimed to cover a certain area (an area with enemy in it or in the case of a cavalryrush an area where you estimate the cav will be when the arrows come zooming in) with a dense cloud of arrows thus some arrows were bound to hit target.

Longbowmen weren't so much uber-fighters as they were cost-effective ones; you could have bunches of the guys any time you needed them ready to deal some damage. But the time it takes to train people how to use them in a semi-organized fashion, and the time needed to create a good longbow - years in both cases - meant that something else would be still more preferable.

You are contradicting yourself. First you say you can a have a bunch of guys ready always then you say it takes a lifetime to be ready to use a bow or else you would shoot 40 feet to your left, drop the arrow or whatever.

You are on to something when you start to talk about the making of the bow though. (see my earlier post about economics).

Suddenly, 17 comrades collapse after being hit by the enemy arrows. But you're for the most part unaware. You can't see them, and you can just barely hear their muffled screams over everything else, and it's not enough to shake you from your battle rush as you move towards the enemy line...

So when hit by an arrow screams are muffled?? A storm of arrows create a distinct sound and I bet soldiers didnt like that sound and they didnt like seeing their comrades fall either and unless hit in the mouth I bet many would scream their heart out.

BANG!

The enemy! Where the bloody hell is the enemy? They've disappeared into a cloud of smoke - smoke that smells like sulfur, like the very fires of Hell! Your ears are ringing from the deafening noise. You've gone from hearing everything to hearing nothing in an instant. In a literal flash, you've just lost your two primary senses, your awareness of the battle. Now what?

Both these things you describe would penelise the shooter more then the reciever of the shot. The big bang is biggest and loudest for those that fire the weapon (in fact the bang is very close to the shooters ear, that is why, when possible, we use protection for our ears when we shoot today).

The smoke makes the enemy dissapear for both sides but it is the shooter that is in the midst of this smelly thing...

Anyways now im off to breakfast.

Kalle

[cannon_fodder]

I'll put in my 2 cents again, in a slightly different way.

If longbows were so effective during actual combat, they would've seen widespread use for a much longer time than they did, despite the strategic issues. If arquebuses were so ineffective during combat, they would have taken centuries longer to catch on, even when the strategic benefits are taken into account.

I don't know if you can even say that arquebuses do have many strategic benefits. Of course they're somewhat easier to use up to the maximum effectiveness of the weapon, but there are other factors. I've read that the arquebuse's ammunition (lead balls) was cheaper and faster to construct than the bow's, which isn't surprising. However, one must also consider the gunpowder. I think it's safe to assume that gunpowder, given all the labour at various stages of its creation, was not cheap.

Then there's the maintenance, weight, accidents, deafening, visibility, poisoning, and inability to fire in rain issues. I doubt it would've taken as long as some say to train a longbowman to fire at roundabout the correct X and Y angles to hit area an enemy unit occupies. And when you consider that most men would be several ranks back and not have a good view of the enemy, I really doubt that the ability to hit a small target at long range would count for much.

What I'm getting at is that arquebuses carry with them many strategic and several tactical issues. If bows were so much greater in combat, they would not have been replaced. That's why I argue that arquebuses were far more devastating weapons than bows. With bows, you can slow down an enemy unit, break apart formations, and perhaps cause minor injuries to their troops. But a bow couldn't penetrate standard armour since chain mail was in use, and it doesn't have a chance in hell of penetrating plate. Read that study I posted in a link a while back.

The arquebus, on the other hand, is an effective killing weapon. It was powerful enough to kill someone wearing plate, and anyone so heavily armoured to actually survive a hit would be completely useless in combat.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I'll put in my 2 cents again, in a slightly different way.

If longbows were so effective during actual combat, they would've seen widespread use for a much longer time than they did, despite the strategic issues. If arquebuses were so ineffective during combat, they would have taken centuries longer to catch on, even when the strategic benefits are taken into account.

I don't know if you can even say that arquebuses do have many strategic benefits. Of course they're somewhat easier to use up to the maximum effectiveness of the weapon, but there are other factors. I've read that the arquebuse's ammunition (lead balls) was cheaper and faster to construct than the bow's, which isn't surprising. However, one must also consider the gunpowder. I think it's safe to assume that gunpowder, given all the labour at various stages of its creation, was not cheap.

Then there's the maintenance, weight, accidents, deafening, visibility, poisoning, and inability to fire in rain issues. I doubt it would've taken as long as some say to train a longbowman to fire at roundabout the correct X and Y angles to hit area an enemy unit occupies. And when you consider that most men would be several ranks back and not have a good view of the enemy, I really doubt that the ability to hit a small target at long range would count for much.

What I'm getting at is that arquebuses carry with them many strategic and several tactical issues. If bows were so much greater in combat, they would not have been replaced. That's why I argue that arquebuses were far more devastating weapons than bows. With bows, you can slow down an enemy unit, break apart formations, and perhaps cause minor injuries to their troops. But a bow couldn't penetrate standard armour since chain mail was in use, and it doesn't have a chance in hell of penetrating plate. Read that study I posted in a link a while back.

The arquebus, on the other hand, is an effective killing weapon. It was powerful enough to kill someone wearing plate, and anyone so heavily armoured to actually survive a hit would be completely useless in combat.

The English armies took time to develop the weapon en masse for campaigns aganist the scots and French, other nations quite simply were prepared to change their tactics in battle as most didn't like the idea of one, giving so much sway to a common soldier in unit ratio (usually 3/4 archers) and also not riding into battle and having to dismount. Most saw it as dis-honourable and were not particularly keen in fighting side by side and on foot with their lower orders.

The English had learnt the power of dismounting the entire army in a prepared position after the victory of the Exiles at Dupplin Muir. The power of defensive formations with caltrops and trench, with archers on the flanks with a solid dense mass of Men at arms usually 4-6 deep was the key to them winning victory after victory. The French and Scots nobles often dismounted to fight usch as at Poitiers and Nevilles Cross but by dismounting their knights they took their ability at shock action in a charge. This left them even more prone to exhaustion and pickings for the fresh dismounted men at arms and target practise for the archers