Quote Originally Posted by SMZ
There were cavalry archers in the western lands... they didn't use composite bows. Composite bows were for the most part, an eastern thing. It has to do with the available materials. Wood was plentiful in the west, so they used that. In the east it wasn't, so they got inventive and it happened to end up being something better. If you think that's dumb... well I guess history's dumb then.

A Steel Crossbow can fire a good ways with a straight shot. It is only when fired with an arc that the Crossbow loses its power. Crossbows are for the most part primitive guns, they operate on the same basic principals. Remeber, bullets are much much lighter and shorter than either... and are by far the most deadly. The size of the ammo isn't as important as the power that's throwing it. Snapping pieces of steel aren't as strong as exploding gunpowder, but they're plenty strong and can fling a bolt plenty far.

The hunting comment was illustrating the power of the Crossbow, I don't know how you connected that to rate of fire. I already said that Crossbows are slower... everyone knows that.
Hmmm composite bows weren't made of wood ?! News to me . It's not the wood, it's the glue. Couldn't be used in more humid climates, composite bows lost their power and even outright broke sometimes when they were brought further west.

A crossbow bolt has just as much power fired in an arc as an arrow. Why would it suddenly lose any ? There not a special realm of physics for crossbows . The problem with firing a crossbow (or a rifle, for that matter) in an arc is not loss of power, only it's absolutely impossible to aim that way. The bolt is too small and flies too fast to be seen easily, so you have no idea where it lands if you don't fire straight at the target, whereas you can follow the flight of your arrows and correct your aim accordingly. That's the whole point of modern tracer rounds BTW.

I wholy agree that the longbow is widely overrated though. They certainly weren't the ultimate laser rays of doom you guys seem to accept they were. Fire far ? Sure. Fire fast ? Why not. It's still a simple bow and arrow, not a mortar shell. Ah, but I forget the fiendishly ingenious bodkin head ! Like nobody but the English ever figured broadheads didn't work as well on armor...

Yeah, yeah, Azincourt, right. The way it went down, terrain, weather and command-wise, the Welsh could have fired slingshots and still slaughtered the French cav.