Armored longbow men vs. Scots Guard

[myz]

Frankly, I thought the longbow men were the best bowmen in Western Europe in the middle ages until maybe the invention of gun powder. But from some of the screenshots as well as the previews on the .com, the Scots Guard look more heavily armed and more bada** than the Armored English longbow men. Actually the longbow men are probably not even the best archers of the English, I heard there is some forest archer that have a lot higher missile attack. Longbow men are a big part of the English battle strategy. Did they tone down the longbow men in this game? Longbow men are not the only archers than can use stakes by the way. I think for the English alone, militia archers or some other cheap unit can use stakes too. In addition, longbow men can light fire on the arrows like some other cheaper English archers can.

I guess my point is: longbow men are not significantly better than the elite archers of other european factions; it is not better than Scots Guard, and heck they are not even the best English archers.

[Nathanael]

The sherwood foresters you speak of are more of an elite assassin type unit, with half the men of a normal unit, 2 hit points, and hide anywhere. IIRC, the armoured longbowman is the best normal archer unit for the English, and even if it's missile damage stat is similar to other arrow units, you have to remember that longbows are effective against armor and have further range.

[econ21]

Well, the Sherwood Foresters remind me of what King Arthur says of Camelot in Mony Python and the Holy Grail: "It's a silly place - let's not go there.". They are an elite fantasy unit and cannot really be compared with a historical one. I probably won't recruit any and suspect we won't see many in AI armies.

We don't know the stats of the armoured longbowmen[1] vs the Scots Guard. We do know the Scots Guard were a real elite unit guarding the French King. I suspect they were more than a match for a typical rank and file English archer unit. They were better armoured (a fair amount of plate) and more effective at melee (some had polearms). However, they were only one small unit whereas longbowmen could make up around half of a medieval English army. So in M2TW, I expect you will pay a lot more for the Scots Guard, draw upon a narrower recruitment pool and probably face stiffer build requirements. I suspect their missile attack will be similar to the best longbowmen.

I agree, I will not be happy if we see massed ranks for Sherwood Foresters crowding out the armoured longbowmen or if we see massed ranks of Scots Guards outshooting them. But I have confidence that won't happen. For example, people complained about arcani or gladiators in RTW but I don't think I ever used them, and I seldom fought them (never with arcani).

[1]BTW, I think the leaked Polish beta did not have armoured longbowmen - they had something like retainer longbowmen. It also looked like you could upgrade your units armour (e.g. from none to padded or mail to heavy mail), which will be a really nice feature.

[Watchman]

A nitpicker would point out that proper composite bows trump *any* self-bows any day and thus just about all "Eastern" archers should be long-ranged and AP too...

Good thing I'm not one though. I'll make sure to mention if I see any such unwholesome people here.

[ShadesWolf]

What you need to keep in mind is volume.
England spent a lot of time and money on creating archers.
Scotland and France were not known for volumes of archers......
They were Englands main battle plan

[Loki]

Watchman,

Say rather "Composite Recurve" bows.... The composit construction of the eastern bows was only half the equation. Their unique recurve shape contributed a great deal to their deadliness. The recurve made the string speed on release gradually increase as the bow unflexed and the string wrapped around the recurved tips. (for a simple exampl of this phenominon just take a bit of string with a weight at the end and twirl it about your finger. As the string wraps around and its radius gets shorter the speed of the revolution gets faster) This allowed the composit recurve to have a higher peak draw weight without deforming the arrow (flex and warp) on release. In fact, until the advent of the modern compound bow they were the king. Add in the thumb ring mechanical release popularized by the Turks and its quite a deadle combo. One that I dont think is adequately modeled in the current MTW eastern horse archers....

Just thought some of you might be interested in that little tidbit :)

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The archers of Gwent, Macclesfield, the forest of Dean and Cheshire were famed for their archery. The only real famous archers of scotland that i know of were from the Lothian and selkirk area and even then they would not have a chance against the training and numbers that England had

[Watchman]

Say rather "Composite Recurve" bows....

Fair enough, but pretty much since the end of the Chariot Age (when composite bows were still relatively straight) all the bows that are normally and without getting excessively pedantic termed "composite bows" were of the horn-wood-and-sinew recurve type in different versions...

[the_mango55]

As much as people talk about the awesomeness of the longbow, it was about the same quality weapon as an eastern composite bow.

What made the english longbowman feared was the superb training and large numbers. With the possible exception of mongols, there was probably no nation that had bowmen as well trained as the english.

[Watchman]

Composite bow trumps longbow. Period. If nothing else (and there's much) it's far smaller and thus usable on horseback.

In any case the standard English archery tactics did not require so much accuracy as endurance and speed - massed archery was normally employed more against the whole area the enemy formation occupied than individual targets. Loose-order skirmishers, troops protected by the crenellations of castle walls and suchlike of course required more pimpoint accuracy.

[Bob the Insane]

Truth is that without a few genuine 15th centry English Longbow men and step horse archers shooting it out on live TV for our viewing pleasure this will always be an academic discussion...

Both areas had men trained in the use of their particular bow type from childhood which would mean most would be proficient and accurate and a few would become truely exceptional.

Saying that the english bowman's skill was limited to hitting the broadside of a barn (frequently and at long range) because they where used enmass is a shortsighted as declaring step archers inferior because they use little bows and ride ponies...

[Watchman]

The rule of thumb seems to have been that all other things being equal stationary horse archer beat moving horse archers and foot archers beat horse archers in straight firefight. Stabler firing platform or something like that. 'Course, those all other things usually weren't even remotely equal, but nonetheless foot missile troops - crossbowmen, archers, slingers - seem to have been an effective counter to at least the harassement tactics the steppe nomads tended to favor. Dunno about how well they worked against the practice of firing stationary characteristic of "settled" horse archers though, but certainly they can't have hurt.

Longbowmen would nonetheless have had the disadvantage that their weapons just plain weren't as powerful and mechanically effective as the composite bows; if the difference was great enough to outweight other issues is however an another question.

[Sun of Chersonesos]

i do believe the scotsguard are somewhat better than these armoured longbowmen but since they are french guard i believe that they will have half the men, much like the sherwoods. however, if it came to scots guard v sherwoods, i'd put my money on the sherwoods.

As for what econ speaks of (retinue armoured longbowmen). they are a more elite version of the armoured longbowmen and also have slightly more armour, but what the true difference is i dont know. The funny thing is - regarding the polish illegal beta - the picture on totalwar.com looked like they put the retinue longbowmen as the picture and not the normal ones.

[econ21]

The rule of thumb seems to have been that all other things being equal stationary horse archer beat moving horse archers and foot archers beat horse archers in straight firefight. Stabler firing platform or something like that.

I used to think that and MTW certainly adhered to that model. Then I played Mount and Blade. Man, it is a nightmare trying to hit skirmishing horse archers. You have to lead with your aim to hit the moving target. They don't seem to have a problem zeroing on my stationary foot archer. The experience helped me tolerate the Cantabrian circle and must greater defensive ability of horse archers in RTW.

Of course a pavisse or some cover (e.g. wagons) should decisively tip the balance in favour of the foot archer. Or maybe I've been watching too many cheesy old Westerns (Indians circling the wagons)?

[Watchman]

The track record of military history seems to be of a somewhat different opinion than the games, though, for pretty much by default stationary foot missile troops (you try shooting a bow on the run...) appear to have been one of the better horse-archer counters.

[Kralizec]

The rule of thumb seems to have been that all other things being equal stationary horse archer beat moving horse archers and foot archers beat horse archers in straight firefight. Stabler firing platform or something like that.

Temjun, or later Genghis Khan had his horse archers trained to release the arrow at the precise moment that the horses hoofs were off the ground, for more accuracy. A mongol shooting at full gallop will mince any idiot stupid enough to try to hit him while having his horse stand still and thus be easy to hit.

A thing that many overlook is that if you're galloping towards the enemy while you release your arrow, your arrow will have greater speed and therefore penetration.

[the_mango55]

^ Enemy arrows striking you will also have greater penetration

[Arjun]

Temjun, or later Genghis Khan had his horse archers trained to release the arrow at the precise moment that the horses hoofs were off the ground, for more accuracy. A mongol shooting at full gallop will mince any idiot stupid enough to try to hit him while having his horse stand still and thus be easy to hit.

A thing that many overlook is that if you're galloping towards the enemy while you release your arrow, your arrow will have greater speed and therefore penetration.

an arrow would have a initial velocy of about maybe 200 meters per second and if ur horse goes at about 36 kilometers per hour then u can add another 10 meters per second. its only a 5 % increase. not to mention the lesser accuracy.

[Watchman]

And your unit's formation is more or less shot to Hell. Gallop was always really good for that, among other things. But then I'm guessing that was part of the skirmish-harassement tactics done in loose order so the point is really a bit moot.

Gonna tire the poor pony pretty fast though.

Which is why "settled" horse-archers didn't do it. They didn't have gazillion little grass-munching ponies each to replace tired ones with - one or two rather bigger, faster and stronger grain-fed warhorses was what they got. I understand their typical approach was to manuever to a suitable firing position in close order and rely on armour and sheer density of archery (ie. more bows per unit of area) - it's not like they weren't trained to fire on the move too or even use the bow as a close-assault weapon, but the economies of horseflesh meant they had to be mindful of not taxing their mounts too much.

Anyway, the Ilkhanids don't exactly appear to have had an advantage over the Mamluks when it comes down to that. So much for "a mongol shooting at full gallop will mince any idiot stupid enough to try to hit him while having his horse stand still and thus be easy to hit" - and I can quite quarantee that Mongol too saw a noticeable increase in accuracy if his mount was standing still, and possibly even greater if he was on foot. Shooting accurately from the back of a running horse was a pretty common nomad skill, but that doesn't mean they were at their most accurate doing that now does it ?

I also suspect you somewhat overestimate the effects of target movement on archery accuracy, especially massed battlefield archery at some distance much of which will in any case be directed at targets approaching head on or as close as makes no meaningful difference. Horses don't run so fast a skilled shot couldn't hit one even if it was going across his field of fire.

A thing that many overlook is that if you're galloping towards the enemy while you release your arrow, your arrow will have greater speed and therefore penetration.

Pittance of little practical concern, no doubt. Horses don't run so fast, even if you add up the velocity addition of two horses approaching each other at full tilt. Not compared to what energy the bow and the archer give the arrow, or what it loses to air resistance in flight.

[CBR]

an arrow would have a initial velocy of about maybe 200 meters per second and if ur horse goes at about 36 kilometers per hour then u can add another 10 meters per second. its only a 5 % increase. not to mention the lesser accuracy.

An arrow would more likely have an initial velocity of 50-70 m/s depending on arrow weight, draw weight and bow design.

But AFAIK horse archers generally had problems against foot archers/crossbowmen. It might not be easy to hit an individual target moving fast but deep formations of archers would rain down arrows into a large area anyway. If archers could disrupt a heavy cavalry charge then they most certainly could disrupt horse archers too.


CBR

[Watchman]

Heavy cavalry tended to be problematic. It was usually rather well protected and bore right down on you, unlike horse-archers who normally kept their distance. Actually checking the charge of armoured cavalry by sheer weight of archery alone was apparently a rare achievement, and spoke of fairly awesome degree of training among the troops for the necessary rate of fire to be achieved. Mamluk horse-archers (possibly an elite unit) apparently pulled it off at least once against Crusader cavalry, but that's about the only instance I know of.

Still, distrupting the charge to the point where it loses much of its effect can be achieved with less heroic feats of nocking arm. The English longbowmen managed it often enough (although the horsemen still needed to be chases off the old-fashioned way), and by all accounts they couldn't hold a candle to the Easterners in this field.

[CBR]

Oh yes I certainly didnt imply that missile weapons normally stopped heavy cavalry charges. They could do it occasionally but generally needed some help to disrupt and "persuade" the cavalry to pull away. Morlaix would be one example as the ditch disordered the cavalry and with the arrows dropping down on them stopped most of the cavalry.

Horse archers generally operated at close range of around 50 meters for better effectiveness and AFAIK they certainly didnt want to do that for long when facing crossbowmen (who afterall has lower ROF than bows)

Even against muskets Tartars preferred to stay far away and use long range fire with limited effect.

I really dont think the increased efficiency of recurves are that much better than selfbows. Such bows are certainly better at shooting light arrows much faster and further than selfbows, but the heavy war arrows would IMO only have a small increase in power. Not enough to warrant some big advantage for recurve bow armed units.


CBR

[Temujin]

Of course a pavisse or some cover (e.g. wagons) should decisively tip the balance in favour of the foot archer. Or maybe I've been watching too many cheesy old Westerns (Indians circling the wagons)?

Not at all. Wagons were extensively used on the steppes to protect infantry and civilians from enemy horse archers.

Heavy cavalry tended to be problematic. It was usually rather well protected and bore right down on you, unlike horse-archers who normally kept their distance. Actually checking the charge of armoured cavalry by sheer weight of archery alone was apparently a rare achievement, and spoke of fairly awesome degree of training among the troops for the necessary rate of fire to be achieved. Mamluk horse-archers (possibly an elite unit) apparently pulled it off at least once against Crusader cavalry, but that's about the only instance I know of.

The Song chinese did it too on occasion, and favoured crossbowmen in the north because they believed a well-timed volley could stop even heavy cavalry. Still, it didn't work often enough to prevent them getting clobbered over and over.

The track record of military history seems to be of a somewhat different opinion than the games, though, for pretty much by default stationary foot missile troops (you try shooting a bow on the run...) appear to have been one of the better horse-archer counters.

Trying to think of battle accounts where horse archers lose, all I can come up with is them getting hit by heavier cavalry or outshot by other horse-archers (stationary or otherwise). Also, lots of accounts of generals wishing they had more cavalry to counter their foe, rather than more archers.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

It must be remembered that the Warbow was never used to stop a cavalry charge. It was there to disrupt it. Along with trenches, which were used at many set battles in the Hundred years war, it was used to break up and disorganise the French conroi who wanted to keep as close together and compact as possible to allow maximum power in penertrating the English line. The bringing down of one horse, which would always be aimed for not the man at arms or knight, could cause chaos within the initial charge. The mounted knight loosing his speed in shock action, would be surrounded by at least 3 dismounted English knights or Welsh and Cornish spearmen such as at Crecy where they would overwhelm him and move on to the next wounded rider.

Even though the power of the English armies lay in their mass ranks of bowmen do not think that were inferior archers individually. These men were often trained from infancy with the bow and were reknown for their accuracy in battle ofter calling out enemy targets to their fellow archers. The great warbow never really met the eastern bow in a pitched batttle so we will never know who had the edge. Of course a mounted eastern archer would have an advantage in speed and movement on his side but i feel dismounted would still have to weather a hell of an arrow storm

[Watchman]

Trying to think of battle accounts where horse archers lose, all I can come up with is them getting hit by heavier cavalry or outshot by other horse-archers (stationary or otherwise). Also, lots of accounts of generals wishing they had more cavalry to counter their foe, rather than more archers.

AFAIK the Romans did it several times against the Parthians and Sassanids, who were apparently often willing to yield the field rather than try to take on the Roman heavy infantry with their horse-archers countered by foot missiles.

Crossbowmen were also the tried-and-true Crusader States countermeasure.

[Darsh]

Scot guard should be better than longbowmen 1vs1 but the longbowmen unit have more men.

[Ulstan]

"I used to think that and MTW certainly adhered to that model. Then I played Mount and Blade. Man, it is a nightmare trying to hit skirmishing horse archers. "

I doubt individual foot archers tried to hit individual horse archers. They more likely just shot into the horse archer formation. Foot archers would have the abilitity to fire more arrows from a specific area of ground, and have a steadier firing 'platform' and could thus be counted on to land more arrows within their target zone.

Conversely horse archers made slightly bigger targets, (the unarmored horses attached to each man).

Dead gallops across the front of the enemies line might make horse archers harder to hit, but if they were standing stationary or riding in a circle, etc, it wouldn't be all that difficult.

[SirGrotius]

I noticed in maybe the MP blog that the blogger mentioned how British Longbow men were weakened in order to improve game balance.

Do we have word if flaming arrows are in or out? I always used them because I thought they looked cool, but found them a bit weird especially when they were used as often as they were. I assume this was very ahistorical.

[Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)]

In the battle of Agincourt the longbowmen had no effect.Their arrows couldn't pierce the France armor.But they had an effect with their swords because the france knights ignored inferior soldiers like longobowmen.The knights wanted to kill the british lords and king.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Thats not quite true. The Longbowmen's arrows got between the joints in the knight's armour, through their visors and generally caused mayhem. At 50 yards they would go through armour.

More importantly, not all warbows were simple weapons. Some were actually compound contruction, at the very least many were made from layered strips of yew. This improved power and durability.