Longbows are no good

[dopp]

I think you may be arguing what is theoretically possible with what is practically possible under battlefield conditions, whereas I am pointing out the practical rate of fire. I am well aware that revolvers and bolt-action rifles can be fired as fast as automatic weapons given proper technique and concentration. I have also read accounts of Japanese archery masters exceeding 20 shots per minute and maintaining that rate of fire for hours, let alone minutes. I have even fired such weapons myself and see no reason why such records should be questioned. Nevertheless, these impressive totals drop drastically in combat situations where the enemy is shooting back or charging at you, even for hardened professionals. Unfortunately, I have never been in a combat situation with a non-automatic weapon, so I have to trust historical accounts when it comes to evaluating rates of fire. Historical accounts are often riddled with errors (casualty figures spring to mind here), but 12-15 rounds per minute seems to be the consensus regarding the remarkable rate of fire displayed in 1914 by the BEF during the early battles, set against a somewhat slower 8-10 rounds for green troops. This was enough to force trench warfare. In fact, a much slower rate of fire with rifle muskets was enough to force trench warfare and open formations during the American Civil War (I don't think anyone can argue for 30 rounds a minute with a musket). We see nothing like this for longbows (or crossbows), even though supposedly they also penetrated all armor, shot just as far, and twice or thrice as fast. Something is being exaggerated here.

I refer to the SMLE as a carbine. This is not entirely accurate, since I think there was a shorter weapon officially designated as the carbine, but I think it was the general trend in infantry rifles to get shorter around this time (while the bayonets get correspondingly longer).

[Carl]

3 points dopp:

1. your overstating the accurracy of the Lonbows in Parabolic firing. A riflemen could probably get 2 or 3 times as many hits as they longbowmen could with the same number of shots.

2. Your overstating the lethatality. Furthar back in this thread is a link to a document on Longbows by a Historian in which he quotes sources on the enemy/nuetral sides who tend to agree on the Longbows having a fairly fast fire rate, (I can't remeber the figures, but fast), they even agree it will go through armour. However it clearly wasn't allways lethal if it did. One enemy king had 3 arrows go through his helm. One got stuck in his eye, the other two in his skull. yet he went on to live a longish life afterwards, even with the ones in his skull still their as they couldn't get them out. Longbow hits would tend to incapacitate with minor injuries more than they tended to kill.

3. The persons in charge at the time where people who wanted to show how brave they where. hiding in a trench dosen't look brave. charging through a storm of potentiolly deadly arrows does. It was this same "i'm better than them" attitude that led to the mass adoption of firearms over everything else. being able to say you had the most guns was what made you the "big man". Think about it for a moment. Longbows easilly outranged American Civil War unrifiled guns by a factor of a least 3-1, (and probably more for napoleionic era stuff), and would have been shooting faster than the enemy, AND would be beter in melee (armour and possibly sheild), and the enemy is unarmoured making them vulnrable to the arropws. Did I mention the supiriour cav defence provided by stakes? Yet Longbows where never used despite the fact that an old english Longbow army would probably have massacred Napoleons forces in the feild with ease. It was because the Longbow had been dropped as a militiary weapon because it wasn't cool enough. effectivness had nothing to do with the matter.

[Moah]

3 points dopp:

3. The persons in charge at the time where people who wanted to show how brave they where. hiding in a trench dosen't look brave. charging through a storm of potentiolly deadly arrows does. It was this same "i'm better than them" attitude that led to the mass adoption of firearms over everything else. being able to say you had the most guns was what made you the "big man". Think about it for a moment. Longbows easilly outranged American Civil War unrifiled guns by a factor of a least 3-1, (and probably more for napoleionic era stuff), and would have been shooting faster than the enemy, AND would be beter in melee (armour and possibly sheild), and the enemy is unarmoured making them vulnrable to the arropws. Did I mention the supiriour cav defence provided by stakes? Yet Longbows where never used despite the fact that an old english Longbow army would probably have massacred Napoleons forces in the feild with ease. It was because the Longbow had been dropped as a militiary weapon because it wasn't cool enough. effectivness had nothing to do with the matter.

I'm not sure even the stupidest general or government would ditch an effective weapon just because it wasn't cool!

Was it not because bullets went straight through armour and longbows didn't? Sure if you fired enough you'd find a few cracks and joints, but the musket ball went straight through, no? So to be accurate firearms should ignore army (unless they already do?) meaning your armoured knights might as well be wearing smocks....

[dopp]

1. No I'm not, I'm just pointing out that either the longbow fires slower than imagined, or the individual shots are unaimed (in the sense of picking out individual targets, not that the longbowmen closed their eyes and shot wildly). All evidence points to the fact that in massed volley fire, only a small percentage of shots hit their targets, although it is still far more effective than aiming individually, yet there are still people who insist that longbowmen had their cake and ate it too (ie fired volleys but could hit with every shot).

2. Waaay back I made the claim that plate armor provided reasonable protection against arrows, allowing the knights to survive the arrow storm. Even arrows that penetrated would not necessarily cause fatal or even disabling wounds. Unfortunately, someone then started talking about 200lb longbows and how they could pierce 2 inches of steel plate...

10 or even 6 shots a minute is already blazing fast compared to crossbows and muskets. I never claimed that longbows were slow as molasses, I just disagreed on how fast. 20 shots per minute is really pushing it when military historians are talking about 6-10.

3. So you do believe that the average French gentleman had an IQ somewhat lower than room temperature? Oh dear.

People don't tend to be too stupid, especially not those who live and die by their mistakes. If archery was as lethal as the myth of the longbow claims, the storm of arrows would not be 'potentially deadly', but 'guaranteed deadly'. After the first few wannabe heroes buy it, the survivors will generally come up with better ways to wage war than charging straight ahead.

And my point was that the longbow would have remained in service at least as specialist sharpshooters alongside muskets if it could really massacre Napoleonic forces with ease. I sincerely doubt that it could, even though the musketeers were completely unarmored in most cases.

So the 'cool factor' made armies abandon a superweapon for a dud? Armies are incredibly resistant to change and are much less likely than most to fall for the 'shiny factor' of new weapons. Your life is quite literally on the line when you abandon a tried and true weapon for something new. If the new guns were not at least competitive with longbows in battle, they would have been abandoned by the wayside.

[Carl]

1. No I'm not, I'm just pointing out that either the longbow fires slower than imagined, or the individual shots are unaimed (in the sense of picking out individual targets, not that the longbowmen closed their eyes and shot wildly). All evidence points to the fact that in massed volley fire, only a small percentage of shots hit their targets, although it is still far more effective than aiming individually, yet there are still people who insist that longbowmen had their cake and ate it too (ie fired volleys but could hit with every shot).

Nobody sensibile has been claiming that longbows where getting good accurracy at range, the contemproery historical accounts from the apposing side ceartinlly don't. That was my point. Your saying somthing has to be out from what your saying and i'm saying that the genuine accounts say it is.

2. Waaay back I made the claim that plate armor provided reasonable protection against arrows, allowing the knights to survive the arrow storm. Even arrows that penetrated would not necessarily cause fatal or even disabling wounds. Unfortunately, someone then started talking about 200lb longbows and how they could pierce 2 inches of steel plate...

10 or even 6 shots a minute is already blazing fast compared to crossbows and muskets. I never claimed that longbows were slow as molasses, I just disagreed on how fast. 20 shots per minute is really pushing it when military historians are talking about 6-10.

I agree with that too, my point was mearly that you tried saying people where making the Longbow out as an uber weapon. It wasn't, it was probably the best missile weapon avalibile prior to rifled guns, but thats about as uber as it gets. At range it lacked the power to kill, (though it could maim). It also Lacked accurracy. 8-12 shots a minute is much more resonable IMHO.

3. So you do believe that the average French gentleman had an IQ somewhat lower than room temperature? Oh dear.

People don't tend to be too stupid, especially not those who live and die by their mistakes. If archery was as lethal as the myth of the longbow claims, the storm of arrows would not be 'potentially deadly', but 'guaranteed deadly'. After the first few wannabe heroes buy it, the survivors will generally come up with better ways to wage war than charging straight ahead.

Tell that to thefrench knights during and after the hundred Years war. Or all the knights killed by crossbows. Or all the idiots on horses in napoleonic times that got killed by muskets, the british army at the end of the 1800's when it was shown that the then current rifle had the wrong type of rifiling, (the best sharpshooters of the day could only peirce a coin at 100paces with the current rifle. Queen Victoria did it at 300 paces with the new rifle), yet they didn't adopt it for over a decade. likewise, today many SAW's are 5.56mm despite the fact that it's well known that a 7.76mm one is far better on the battlefeild where it matters. Just because it's not the best weapon for the job dosen't mean it won't be used. If they think it's better or they just don't want to fight that way then you'll see infiriour weapons feilded.

I mean the Knights even considered missile weapons cowardlly for war and tried to get rossbows BANNED, (thats like Fighter Piolts trying to ban AAA and SAM systems because they are unsporting). People WERN'T sensible or smart back then when it came to some thing, they had preconcived notions of honour and what was right and didn't want to shift from them.

And my point was that the longbow would have remained in service at least as specialist sharpshooters alongside muskets if it could really massacre Napoleonic forces with ease. I sincerely doubt that it could, even though the musketeers were completely unarmored in most cases.

No offence dopp, (because i respect you), but you displaying a total lack of common sense here.

The Lonbowmen have longer range, faster fire rate, equal ability to knock each other out of the fight and the longbowmen are better in melee. Theirs no way in hell those musketeers should have any chance whatsoever, and where basing much of the above off common sense and known abilities of bows that we could replicate today. So wheer not even relying on hped up accounts from the english side here. The rules of ranged combat have been the same for years, if you effective range is better than your opponnent, and your fire rate is better than your opponent and you have similar lethatality then you'll beat your enemy sensless.

Whats the diffrance between a Crossbowmen, (one with the earlier non-aerbelst style ones BTW), and a Musketeer? The usketreer has even shorter range, less armour and somewhat better lethatality against heavilly armoured foes (but about the same vs. people without much armour on). Most sane people agree that the Lonbow could beat a shorter ranged non-pavise crossbowmen. Considering all the advantages even the crossbowmen has over the Muskuteer in terms of range and armour, (helps in melee), it seems utterly stupid to suggest anything OTHER than the musketeer getting wioped out.

So the 'cool factor' made armies abandon a superweapon for a dud? Armies are incredibly resistant to change and are much less likely than most to fall for the 'shiny factor' of new weapons.

Modern armies are rsistant, old armies arn't they did what god own appointed ruler of the land (the King), tells them to do. Also, when I say cool" I mean Cool as in "It's High-Tech so it's cool, and because it's High-Tech it must be the best". High-Tech dosen't allways equal the best as the USA finds out reguarly. Britans cave tripwire detector in afghanistan is excellent proof of that.

Your life is quite literally on the line when you abandon a tried and true weapon for something new. If the new guns were not at least competitive with longbows in battle, they would have been abandoned by the wayside.

The problem is dopp that that isn't how it works. I highly doubt once the musket showed up and everyone thought it was cool to have (because it's High-Tech and High-Tech is better), that many archer vs. musket duels happened outside seiges. The few that did where probably dismissed as flukes. remeber, England was the only big user of long range bows that i know of. So once they did a mass switch to muskets it wouldn't have been obvious as most shorter ranged Boxw and Crossbows of all kinds wouldn't show the defecit up very much. It's the unique combination of range and the training to fire somewhat accurratly to that range at high ROF that would have made the lonbowmen so good.

[JCoyote]

I refer to the SMLE as a carbine. This is not entirely accurate, since I think there was a shorter weapon officially designated as the carbine, but I think it was the general trend in infantry rifles to get shorter around this time (while the bayonets get correspondingly longer).

It was shorter than the previous rifle, but it wasn't a carbine. Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield. (Which leaves some people asking what happened to long magazines...) Previous to it was a longer rifle, but a shorter carbine for cavalry troops. They created the SMLE on the same action but with a barrel around halfway between the original rifle and the carbine. Hence "Short", but it was technically a Short Rifle, few people even then considered a 25" barrel a carbine. Post muzzle loading, barrels had to start getting in the low 20" range or less to be called carbines. But ultimately, carbine usually meant shorter than similar rifles, but in this case there actually were officially designated carbines so I would avoid referring to the Enfield rifles as such.

Well what I was talking about was battlefield conditions, but a matter of unit level calculus. In short periods of time the firing speed for the British shooters could go as high as 30. But because they were brief intervals they were averaged out into the numbers fed to headquarters. To that officer in charge of the front, the fact that platoons can crank it up that fast for a couple minutes was statistically insignificant when he's dealing with tens of thousands of soldiers on a front. But if you are in that platoon... or the german one that just closed on it... it suddenly becomes very important in that moment.
But of course the officers back at both HQ's would say "What's a platoon here or there?"

(And people wonder why communism took off during that war...)

But anyway, the point is numbers at different levels of command aren't the same. Back then, "Official Reports" were pretty universally written by and to the general staffs of militaries. Each level smooths out the lower levels into broader averages over longer periods of time. As an interesting side note though, while the mauser based armies like Germany and the US all became intensely interested in developing submachineguns, with the US adopting shotguns to compensate and Germans making long hi capacity pistols, there seems to have been a lot less interest among the British military in doing so until much later. They didn't feel a pressing need, likely because their faster rifles gave them the edge when it got close.

ANYWAY... I think perhaps one of the biggest problems here is in the engine. The TW system has no "wounded" condition in regard to the battlefield. It's all alive and 100% or dead. That's not only not accurate, it's especially inaccurate the more armor soldiers are wearing. For all the lives armor saves, a good part of the balance of that is made up of injured soldiers. Really, an army fielding a lot of armored troops is going to have a lot more injured soldiers fighting compared to an army with no armor at all where many just plain died. Missile units, particularly archery ones, tend to injure more than kill. And it is important. A "wounded" condition might be ideal, so that soldiers in a unit who get it take an ability hit. It could perhaps be added as a single bit to each soldier... just plain wounded or not, only one level of injury would make a huge difference. Incapacitating injuries and death can still be handled the same. But it would make a lot of sense to have a level where someone's just "hurt". Instead of slaying whole groups of knights, rendering them combat ineffective would be pretty cool. This could allow for some missile units to be more accurate while less effective but still very useful. Also, it could lead to another good distinction between bows, crossbows, and firearms... at each level, lethality goes up, even if accuracy and firing speed do not. Having muskets not necessarily be any more accurate than crossbows in that age, but having the soldiers they hit more likely to die than be injured, would be a great realistic distinction.

[AussieGiant]

Chaps,

We need to be clear on something and it`s a shame there is no "historical" post thread where everyone can read "the story so far", as we have gone over this before.

As a weapon, the longbow was superior in every way to a musket and even a rifle up until the early 1800`s.

Crazy as it may seem if a longbow army was to be deployed in the Napoleonic era it would have probably won the war.

Just so I`m not going gaga...

can you all imagine marching in one big French column, in your nice faded Blue coats (some 4 to 5 thousand of you) knowing that at 300 yards there are 1000 longbow men able to fire 10 shots a minute at you, and you know going to take you 2 minutes to close the distance??

This didn`t happen for a number a major reasons.

Longbows were a product of a particular set of characteristics in Feudal Great Britain. Stolen from the Welsh who they conquered, it was something they had that was only really seen in other Eastern empires in the form of compound bows. The rest of Europe never really got to grips with it therefore it has probably been overstated in its effectiveness due to the pounding the English generally gave the French for many centuries.

But, it did allow a normal fellow from England to be drafted into an army, be equipped far cheaper and paid far less and be able to, in effect, take out (kill, maim, what ever you prefer) Knight`s and Men at Arms who were some 10 time more costly to train and maintain than a Longbow man. The reason it was available to English Kings was because there are a social mechanism in place to train these fellows in large enough numbers to make them very effective.

It was law to train with the Longbow in England for many, many decades. The Yeomanry of England became essentially professional fighters who were physically large enough and strong enough to wield 100 to 160lb bows and fire arguably up to 15 shots a minute. No one else had the social mechanism in place to match this.

I`m not going to get into a lethality competition but it`s suppression fire capabilities are impressive. And suppression is all you need to have when 5000 long bowman are firing at 5000 knights or 5000 MA to win a battle. It gives you the edge and that is all a good general needs. It will kill plenty, maim many and render not a small number of the oppositions BEST and MOST expensive fighters useless for that particular battle.

Ironically it is the same type of social and economic process that made the longbow a weapon of advantage that lead to the musket (even though an inferior statistical weapon) to dominate leading up to the 1700 and 1800 hundreds. You certainly have a transitional time around the 1600`s in which the English Civil war was played to see the different technologies at work.

Heavy Half Plate, open faced helmets, dueling pistols, pike and shot to summarize the period.

But once the industrial revolution got into full swing by the early to mid 1700`s the process of making a musket could be reproduced at a staggering rate and far faster than longbow`s and all other forms of weapons, both ranged and melee.

On top of this, it took ONLY a few months to grab a bunch of thieves or conscripts and have a number of veteran Sargent's bully them into firing 2 or 3 shots a minute while standing in a great big line. The musket didn`t fire as far, or as fast and was only really more lethal at point blank range than the longbow, BUT it allowed a nation to field not 10 000 longbowmen, but 80 000 musket men (for arguements sake). Put a bayonet on the end of it, and there you have the end of the sword as a weapon of choice except the aristocracy and officers who could still afford them. A bayonet was more than enough, and when "the point beats the edge" in this era of hand to hand combat you have yourself a winner.

If your leading a nation at the time, which weapon are you going to choose gentlemen?

[dopp]

Well what I was talking about was battlefield conditions, but a matter of unit level calculus.

ANYWAY... I think perhaps one of the biggest problems here is in the engine. The TW system has no "wounded" condition in regard to the battlefield. It's all alive and 100% or dead. That's not only not accurate, it's especially inaccurate the more armor soldiers are wearing. For all the lives armor saves, a good part of the balance of that is made up of injured soldiers. Really, an army fielding a lot of armored troops is going to have a lot more injured soldiers fighting compared to an army with no armor at all where many just plain died. Missile units, particularly archery ones, tend to injure more than kill. And it is important. A "wounded" condition might be ideal, so that soldiers in a unit who get it take an ability hit. It could perhaps be added as a single bit to each soldier... just plain wounded or not, only one level of injury would make a huge difference. Incapacitating injuries and death can still be handled the same. But it would make a lot of sense to have a level where someone's just "hurt". Instead of slaying whole groups of knights, rendering them combat ineffective would be pretty cool. This could allow for some missile units to be more accurate while less effective but still very useful. Also, it could lead to another good distinction between bows, crossbows, and firearms... at each level, lethality goes up, even if accuracy and firing speed do not. Having muskets not necessarily be any more accurate than crossbows in that age, but having the soldiers they hit more likely to die than be injured, would be a great realistic distinction.

I'm sorry, but unless you can prove that the official account is solely derived from watered-down AARs, in a time before AARs were even invented, I think that doesn't work either. Please note, 12-15 rounds per minute was considered legendary already, and you're proposing something twice that. Maybe I should have used Civil War riflemen instead of yet another British wonderweapon as my example.

As to lethality... the original MTW had varying levels of lethality. It is not known if RTW still works this way, but I think it still does to some degree. For example, a bow had accuracy 0.68 and a lethality of about 0.5, so 70% hit and I think maybe 50% kill if not stopped by armor. An arquebus (no muskets in MTW) had accuracy 0.03 and lethality 4. 3% chance of a hit, but it would kill you dead about 4 times over if it ever did hit, especially useful against jedi generals with lots of hp. Of course, the fact that it almost never hit made the insane killing power rather worthless (you could get more hits if fired at extreme close range, I think, but still less kills than any other missile unit). Crossbows were extremely accurate, about 0.75, and had a lethality of 1. Longbows were slightly less accurate, about 0.62, but fired noticeably faster than normal bows. There were no composite bows, unfortunately, except for the mounted ones.

As for the above post, I'm not sure what to make of it. Perhaps I should point out that firearms were considered so dangerous and disruptive to society that the manufacture of muskets and gunpowder was monopolized and strictly controlled by the state? Perhaps I should also point out that until the logistical and conscription miracles of the Napoleonic era, armies remained rather small? Larger perhaps than feudal armies, but not to the order of 8-10 times larger. Perhaps also that the musket could stop infantry and cavalry charges through firepower alone, rather than having a messy pileup at the stakes and fierce melee combat between the knights on both sides?

And if numbers win battles despite inferior weapons, then 10,000 native warriors with spears will easily defeat 1,000 Redcoats with muskets. I don't think so.

[Moah]

Chaps,



On top of this, it took ONLY a few months to grab a bunch of thieves or conscripts and have a number of veteran Sargent's bully them into firing 2 or 3 shots a minute while standing in a great big line. The musket didn`t fire as far, or as fast and was only really more lethal at point blank range than the longbow, BUT it allowed a nation to field not 10 000 longbowmen, but 80 000 musket men (for arguements sake). Put a bayonet on the end of it, and there you have the end of the sword as a weapon of choice except the aristocracy and officers who could still afford them. A bayonet was more than enough, and when "the point beats the edge" in this era of hand to hand combat you have yourself a winner.

If your leading a nation at the time, which weapon are you going to choose gentlemen?

Hear hear! THe Longbow is an historical anomaly. Only teh English had teh culture and it was superios not only because of the weapon, but the users. The musket meant you could mass produce and mass train. And if you lost a battle you didn't have to wait 5 years for the stock to replenish just rustle up your next group of peasants and teach them to stand still, load and point.

[Musashi]

See Carl, some people are claiming the longbow was a superweapon medieval nuclear warhead.

[Carl]

I said no one "SENSIBLE" is doinmg so. Yes their are silly people who claim it was firing nuculear tipped arrrows, but most people with 2 brain celss to rub together are not.

[Lord_hazard]

Chaps,

We need to be clear on something and it`s a shame there is no "historical" post thread where everyone can read "the story so far", as we have gone over this before.

As a weapon, the longbow was superior in every way to a musket and even a rifle up until the early 1800`s.

Crazy as it may seem if a longbow army was to be deployed in the Napoleonic era it would have probably won the war.

Just so I`m not going gaga...

can you all imagine marching in one big French column, in your nice faded Blue coats (some 4 to 5 thousand of you) knowing that at 300 yards there are 1000 longbow men able to fire 10 shots a minute at you, and you know going to take you 2 minutes to close the distance??

This didn`t happen for a number a major reasons.

Longbows were a product of a particular set of characteristics in Feudal Great Britain. Stolen from the Welsh who they conquered, it was something they had that was only really seen in other Eastern empires in the form of compound bows. The rest of Europe never really got to grips with it therefore it has probably been overstated in its effectiveness due to the pounding the English generally gave the French for many centuries.

But, it did allow a normal fellow from England to be drafted into an army, be equipped far cheaper and paid far less and be able to, in effect, take out (kill, maim, what ever you prefer) Knight`s and Men at Arms who were some 10 time more costly to train and maintain than a Longbow man. The reason it was available to English Kings was because there are a social mechanism in place to train these fellows in large enough numbers to make them very effective.

It was law to train with the Longbow in England for many, many decades. The Yeomanry of England became essentially professional fighters who were physically large enough and strong enough to wield 100 to 160lb bows and fire arguably up to 15 shots a minute. No one else had the social mechanism in place to match this.

I`m not going to get into a lethality competition but it`s suppression fire capabilities are impressive. And suppression is all you need to have when 5000 long bowman are firing at 5000 knights or 5000 MA to win a battle. It gives you the edge and that is all a good general needs. It will kill plenty, maim many and render not a small number of the oppositions BEST and MOST expensive fighters useless for that particular battle.

Ironically it is the same type of social and economic process that made the longbow a weapon of advantage that lead to the musket (even though an inferior statistical weapon) to dominate leading up to the 1700 and 1800 hundreds. You certainly have a transitional time around the 1600`s in which the English Civil war was played to see the different technologies at work.

Heavy Half Plate, open faced helmets, dueling pistols, pike and shot to summarize the period.

But once the industrial revolution got into full swing by the early to mid 1700`s the process of making a musket could be reproduced at a staggering rate and far faster than longbow`s and all other forms of weapons, both ranged and melee.

On top of this, it took ONLY a few months to grab a bunch of thieves or conscripts and have a number of veteran Sargent's bully them into firing 2 or 3 shots a minute while standing in a great big line. The musket didn`t fire as far, or as fast and was only really more lethal at point blank range than the longbow, BUT it allowed a nation to field not 10 000 longbowmen, but 80 000 musket men (for arguements sake). Put a bayonet on the end of it, and there you have the end of the sword as a weapon of choice except the aristocracy and officers who could still afford them. A bayonet was more than enough, and when "the point beats the edge" in this era of hand to hand combat you have yourself a winner.

If your leading a nation at the time, which weapon are you going to choose gentlemen?

Your absolutely right, the longbow was NOT a cost effective weapon when compared to the crossbow and gunpowder weapon.
I personally think that longbowmen should be have a higher rate of fire then they have now but they should also have a higher cost and upkeep.

[JCoyote]

@ dopp: The current system's varying lethality doesn't achieve what I am talking about, because it still only leads to 2 possible outcomes: pefectly fit or dead. Did you even read what I wrote? The true trick of varying lethality would be to have units becoming combat ineffective while still on their feet. To have a group of 47 men at arms moving in, but the rear 15 of them are walking wounded and hampered in their stats. That's much closer to reality, especially with armor. Currently, whatever doesn't kill you doesn't slow you down at all... Well, I guess it's not like injuries are a significant issue on a battlefield.


BTW 12 per minute was expected sustained fire by a trained new recruit. Just FYI. It's not legendary at all. And that is sustained, NOT maximum.

Funny how no one has made any connection between economics of munitions and the transitions between weapons. From a financial standpoint, the price per projectile between arrows and cast lead balls and cheap powder is a no brainer. Per shot costs with muskets were a fraction of sending swarms of arrows at an enemy, especially when most shots in a volley miss anyway. Not all weapons change are made because of pure battlefield advantage. Just look at weapons from WW1 and 2, as things wore on many item's production quality dropped, to save money. These things can happen over long term too.

The urbanization of Britain also made it harder and harder to maintain a "longbow culture". Large amounts of range to practice on, training ranges, hunting land, etc were becoming less and less available as the isles became more and more crowded and the population became more and more centered and dense. While battles themselves didn't necessarily involve significantly more people than the middle ages, the armies themselves were much larger overall. In the middle ages a single battle could involve a large fraction, even majority, of a nation's military. As colonialism grew though, armies became more spread out as more soldiers were needed to maintain order far from home. The overall size of the British army during colonialism was MUCH larger than any prior point. Populations now being more urban centered than before, and urban areas being the preferable point for recruiting non-necessary workers (still have to feed the nation, using farmers)... it just wasn't practical for England to maintain longbowmen as a primary force anymore. Training a longbowman from childhood just wasn't feasible in urban recruitment areas, it was just easier to have them spend a few weeks with a musket.

This is part of what Franklin was commenting on when he made the not-entirely-in-jest suggestion of the American militias using bows. Involved in this was the realization that the larger tracts of land and far less urbanized colonial population was potentially capable of making longbow culture feasible again. But it would have taken 15 years or more to train up a generation of longbowmen. And by that point in time, if you really wanted to to hit something far away, precision rifles were starting to be made that could match the range of a longbow... with precise enough shots to pick out single targets with ease. Then the Hawken rifles were becoming common enough before the civil war, with which you could kill the horse out from under someone at 500 yards or more. Another point to firearms: far superior at killing horses. Up to the First World War, there people still dreaming of being able to sweep the field with cavalry charges. But while bows and crossbows dominated missile weapons, those charges still crushed armies. After muskets were introduced, cavalry had to be protected and used much more carefully... even after pikes were abandoned. Think about that... it's another piece of that whole puzzle. A longbow was ineffective at any real range against a horse itself, and horse move fast enough to complicate long range arrow fire a little. The much greater ability of muskets to kill a cavalryman's horse was not unnoticed in the equation.

[pike master]

i havnt read this thread before because its been dicussed so much on .com but i will dispell one myth. arquebuses and muskets were not cheap to make the were complex machines while it may have been labor intensive to make a longbow after reading an article on or someone telling me how i could make one.

it required a lot of labor, no how and more forged iron or steel than what you would need to make a great sword or any other large metal weapon. the barrel must be trued to be well aligned. the matchlock mechanism required forging, shaping and fitting the stock even if crude still had to be carved out for the barrel channel, trigger slot and so forth.

a soldier using a firearm although not having to develop the strength to use the longbow had to be more technically trained so he didnt shoot himself or his comrades. it required some training and skill to use even a primitive firearm as easy as guns are to use today they still require training and discipline to use properly. to me if i was given a matchlock musket or arquebus i would be flabbergasted by all the things you would have to keep in mind when loading and firing it wasnt as easy to use as a percussion muzzleloader or flintlock you had a constantly adjust the burning match that you had to keep adjusted by loosening and tightening a clamp screw.

plus you would have to make sure you didnt set the thing off while you were loading because you constantly had a flame burning near to the powder.

if firearms were so complex to make and so complex to operate then if they replaced the longbow on the battlefield it must have been because they caused more dread and death than what people give them credit for.

longbows were simply not more expensive to make then a firearm period. and firearms actually took a specialist of technical expertise and metal working skill to make. gunsmiths at one time were some of the highest paid professionals around.

[JCoyote]

longbows were simply not more expensive to make then a firearm period. and firearms actually took a specialist of technical expertise and metal working skill to make. gunsmiths at one time were some of the highest paid professionals around.

The bows were not more expensive, the economics of maintaining the users was. How many ways do we need to describe that?

There was some talent in using firearms. Even today people will tell you that. But it's of a different nature than archery. We're talking about an athletic talent vs a technical skill.

Not only does a longbowman take years to train, they had to maintain that training. This is almost an identical situation to a professional athlete these days. And just taking a break for a few months and training back up wasn't much of an option for these guys. It's not just skill and talent, it's musculature and fitness. For a short career. Imagine if for defense we needed to take all of our high school athletes in football and basketball across the country... and start training them at 7. Then, we had to keep them in training at that competitive level until they are 30. We have to pay not just for equipment, but for the coaches and pay for the athletes themselves and maintenance of training facilities for them to use the 3 days a week each spends in training. It really adds up. Now, using today's economics, it would easily become economically competitive to train them once for a few months to use a $100,000 dollar weapon instead, even if the result wasn't quite as good.

Compare with even an early firearm. Complicated? To a degree, but it's very linear as far as skills go even so. And let's say it takes months to learn to use... (really, I could easily have any of you shooting one well enough within a day or two, if not very fast) it's a matter of a rote assembly line procedure. Once you have learned it, it takes very little time or effort to maintain. Once someone learns to use a firearm, the skill sticks very easy, unlike an athlete who if he trains and exercises none for a year will have lost the large part of his ability. You've played TW, you know it's the maintenance costs that eat you alive.

Gunsmiths were very highly paid. And they were able to make large numbers of guns and maintain large numbers. Not really much different from a bowyer, though a bowyer had to season his products a long time... though that doesn't really figure into production as much. The thing is, the biggest expense in firearms is the initial infrastructure... once that gets in, production gains figure in much easier. The upfront costs of industry required to make the things is the hardest part, but after that guns were pretty smooth in the making.

And it did not require more forging than a sword. A decent sword took a LOT of very precise metalwork and careful heat treatment. Many firearms were made from much lower grades of steel or iron, and neither hardness nor resilience were significant in a firearm like they are in an edged weapon. The quantity of metal was the issue, but metal was becoming much more common anyway; hence the very presence of armor these things were handier at punching through.

[sir bob a lot]

yes i see that to
the crossbow as the same range as the longbow
but thy can fire over thing to like the longbow to
the only defends is longbow add fire and put down stakes
but m/ crossbow save arrows more that longbows if you look at the amino line of them both the longbow go down quicker than the m/crossbow
this how line my achers up
//////////
--------- longbows ------
----------crowbows------
---------p achers -------
--------h/ inf-----------

[dopp]

I'm impressed by your conviction, but I really think I'd rather believe the historians on the 1337 5ki115 of the BEF, especially since even the most patriotic of them accepts that 12-15 rounds is already phenomenally fast. You have provided no reason so far to doubt them on a simple technical observation, as opposed to something complicated like how many people died.

I hope you're not suggesting that archery is more elite than say mounted cavalry skills. Heavy cavalry survived into the 20th century. Longbows did not. Heavy cavalry was an even more exclusive club than archery, at a 10:1 ratio or more. These were the fellows for which an entire social and economic structure was maintained to support, who trained their whole lives for war and whose entire existence depended upon their battle prowess. I think they might qualify better than longbowmen for your 'athletic warriors'. The new guns rendered them obsolete, because a fresh recruit could now kill someone many times his superior in melee combat, yet cavalry persisted despite the cost, which would have been vastly greater than that of a longbow corps. Horse, armor, weapons; just the man-at-arms alone would have been enormously more expensive to maintain than any archer. I'm not sure how anyone could claim otherwise when he had the equivalent of an entire farming district just for his support.

Yes, urbanization in the 16th century. Metropolitan London eating up all the land already, huh? No more space for the 600-yard archery ranges, everybody just has to practice indoors with muskets. When they talk about a revival of town life in the Early Modern period, they don't mean instant New York City, they just mean you start getting cities larger than five extended families again. I don't think you could consider the Roman Empire excessively urbanized in the modern sense, and the reviving cities of Early Modern Europe had quite a ways to go before they could even equal Rome at its height. Don't confuse the 19th-20th century urbanization with the 16th.

Interestingly, English nobles raising armies for the Civil War (the one that gets Charles I beheaded) reported that a significant number of their yeomen were still reporting for duty with longbows. Due to a general shortage of matchlocks (so much for the joys of mass production), many of them had to serve with the older weapon for a while. They don't seem to have been particularly effective. They weren't the professional soldiers of two hundred years before, but they could use their weapons. Given the massive advantages that some people claim the longbow had over the musket, and given also that their targets were much less armored than before (average was padded, with the cavalry in half-plate), you would have expected a better showing from them.

[pike master]

well if you are looking for something easy to learn to use, cheap to manufacture and accurate the crossbow and arbalest were there and the arbalest was more powerful and more accurate than a bow and quicker to reload than a firearm so why go through all the trouble and expense to make a gun.

and remember assembly lines werent developed until the industrial revolution each part was hand fabricated you couldnt just crank out a bunch of parts and expect them to all match up each parts had to made and fitted for that specific gun.

i think some are kinda thrown off because of stw where the samurai * felt any technology greater than the disciplines of traditional combat was lowly for a warrior to embrace so they let the peasants use the guns. but in europe arquebusiers were a step up from lowly peasants and admired for having a complex weapon that took a brain to use. the three musketeers story (not sure when it was written suggest they were people of middle class or merchant class standing.)well trained in the use of firearm and sword.

[Stlaind]

I think anyone concerned that retinue longbowmen are underpowered needs to set them up behind some spikes with skirmish off and watch them route a unit of gothic knights.

[Lord_hazard]

I think anyone concerned that retinue longbowmen are underpowered needs to set them up behind some spikes with skirmish off and watch them route a unit of gothic knights.

Think it has already been said that, that is not what makes a missile unit a good missile unit.

[sir bob a lot]

i also find out tho that the longbows
when you fight {h/inf}
with longdbows you put them on fire arrows and hurts them !
but thy cant block them {ow i got hot }
but with crossbows thy block the arrows i seen it in the game
i zoom up and look !
i rember this tv promgam that the longbow was then like now {bum bum rounds of that time }
but there was one armour that shield form longbow arrows was the kngiht was head to toe full armour / full plate/and housse

[AussieGiant]

@ mad cat mech and to most in general on this thread:

My comments are only designed around the flintlock muskets.

mad cat mech comment;

"it required a lot of labor, no how and more forged iron or steel than what you would need to make a great sword or any other large metal weapon. the barrel must be trued to be well aligned. the matchlock mechanism required forging, shaping and fitting the stock even if crude still had to be carved out for the barrel channel, trigger slot and so forth.

a soldier using a firearm although not having to develop the strength to use the longbow had to be more technically trained so he didnt shoot himself or his comrades. it required some training and skill to use even a primitive firearm as easy as guns are to use today they still require training and discipline to use properly. to me if i was given a matchlock musket or arquebus i would be flabbergasted by all the things you would have to keep in mind when loading and firing it wasnt as easy to use as a percussion muzzleloader or flintlock you had a constantly adjust the burning match that you had to keep adjusted by loosening and tightening a clamp screw.

plus you would have to make sure you didnt set the thing off while you were loading because you constantly had a flame burning near to the powder.

if firearms were so complex to make and so complex to operate then if they replaced the longbow on the battlefield it must have been because they caused more dread and death than what people give them credit for.

longbows were simply not more expensive to make then a firearm period. and firearms actually took a specialist of technical expertise and metal working skill to make. gunsmiths at one time were some of the highest paid professionals around"

Matchlock and early firearms in the late 1500, 1600's and early 1700's are what I term the transition period. It was in fact a transition period because of the all the things mad cat mech mentioned above. Cost, training, skill requirements were no where near as complete. Hence the continued existance of pikes, swords, plate armour and halberds.

I would however argue strongly that by the mid 1700's these characteristics are all resolved in favour of the musket. I mean we are really talking about 200 years of transition.

From about 1550 to 1750 range weaponry went from Bows to muskets and from swords to bayonets. As dopp mentions, once the social structure for producing archers waned they became obsolete. Equally the social structure for "knights" remained as was still seen in the Napoleonic wars. Heavy Cavalry was still around because the "Landed Gentry" and Aristocracy was still in place to pursue there preferred method of fighting. The only difference between 1550 cavalry and 1750 to 1850 cavalry was armour.

Funny hey. I won’t even go into the paper rock scissor war far of Napoleon. Cavalry still played an important part.

[Stlaind]

Think it has already been said that, that is not what makes a missile unit a good missile unit.

One might think so.... However all this thread is really talking about is the pros and cons of one missile weapon compared to another. To consider any bow/crossbow/firearm with out it being in the context of an actual combat is quite the fallacy.

Really, what makes a missile unit worth having around is whether or not it can do the job effectively. The longbowmen are quite capable of putting some pretty severe hurt on just about anything, and realistically an english army would be swarming with them.

If you really truely think longbows are underpowered, put some modding where your mouth is.

[pike master]

they have a high rate of fire which boils down to more projectiles per minute. i mean even today a soldier prefers the lighter less recoiling m16 over a bolt action or 10 rd semi automatic .50 cal because of the rate of fire and fire superiority which is what keeps the enemies head down so i can understand why some preferred the bow over the gun even after it was obsolete.

but as i said one time when you are shooting at an approaching army of units in close order in a .com thread when shooting a longbow at range the arrow plummets and does generate a good bit of power coming down but it only has one chance to hit someone and then its in the ground and when it does it may richochet of a rounded or conical helmet or rounded shoulder plates or even raised shield will stop the projectile.

with an arquebus or musket fires get shoots a flatter trajectory which carries it into the ranks and if it fails to hit the first men in the ranks it has good chances of hitting someone else further back if the enemy unit is in close order.now one will argue that the balls do not just fly horizontally but many go over or below the target formation. but if it goes low it richochets of the ground and therefore has a chance to hit someone. if it flies high it may shoot over that formation but will drop in trajectory further away and have a chance of hitting formations further back.

the longbow would have a similiar effect if you fired at an enemy at close range. in this you could call when the projectile is firing flat enough that you wouldnt have to raise the weapon to compensate for drop point blank range. therefore an arquebus or musket has a greater point blank range than a longbow. so this may explain why the firearm superseded the bow.

with the crossbow if you overshot you might have the same effect as a musket ball when it drops but when a bolt or arrows hits the ground when it is shot at close range instead of richochet it tends to slide along the ground like a torpedo making it wothless plus the firearm generated more power behind the projectile and even if it didnt penetrate the armor it would cause significant trauma.

just recently i read an article where they are wanting to improve body armor so that when a soldier gets hit there will be a casemate construction in the armor that will give and absorb the shock of the impact. it appears that even if body armor stops a bullet the situation for someone can still be life threatening.

[AussieGiant]

they have a high rate of fire which boils down to more projectiles per minute. i mean even today a soldier prefers the lighter less recoiling m16 over a bolt action or 10 rd semi automatic .50 cal because of the rate of fire and fire superiority which is what keeps the enemies head down so i can understand why some preferred the bow over the gun even after it was obsolete.

but as i said one time when you are shooting at an approaching army of units in close order in a .com thread when shooting a longbow at range the arrow plummets and does generate a good bit of power coming down but it only has one chance to hit someone and then its in the ground and when it does it may richochet of a rounded or conical helmet or rounded shoulder plates or even raised shield will stop the projectile.

with an arquebus or musket fires get shoots a flatter trajectory which carries it into the ranks and if it fails to hit the first men in the ranks it has good chances of hitting someone else further back if the enemy unit is in close order.now one will argue that the balls do not just fly horizontally but many go over or below the target formation. but if it goes low it richochets of the ground and therefore has a chance to hit someone. if it flies high it may shoot over that formation but will drop in trajectory further away and have a chance of hitting formations further back.

the longbow would have a similiar effect if you fired at an enemy at close range. in this you could call when the projectile is firing flat enough that you wouldnt have to raise the weapon to compensate for drop point blank range. therefore an arquebus or musket has a greater point blank range than a longbow. so this may explain why the firearm superseded the bow.

with the crossbow if you overshot you might have the same effect as a musket ball when it drops but when a bolt or arrows hits the ground when it is shot at close range instead of richochet it tends to slide along the ground like a torpedo making it wothless plus the firearm generated more power behind the projectile and even if it didnt penetrate the armor it would cause significant trauma.

just recently i read an article where they are wanting to improve body armor so that when a soldier gets hit there will be a casemate construction in the armor that will give and absorb the shock of the impact. it appears that even if body armor stops a bullet the situation for someone can still be life threatening.

What do you think is the effective range of a flintlock musket?

Accuracy is lost over 50 metres and if you are hit at anything over 100 metres it might not even take a solider out of the fight.

How flat do you think a 160lb bow trajectory is at 50 or 100 metres? It's pretty damn flat. Maybe 10 to 15 degrees. If you don't hit the guy you aimed at then based on your own admission it's going to hit someone else when fired at mass formations.

On the bows behalf, you can start your high trajectory fire at 250 to 300 yards, while your muskets are going to wait a hell of a long time before firing themselves.

I'm not sure what the point is at this moment. But still, I'm just talking away.

[Carl]

I'm not sure what the point is at this moment.

I'm not sure anymore eithier. I think talking away is all anyones doing at this point as where all as confused as hell.

[Stlaind]

All I want to see is people quit talking and put some mods out with what they think XBOW/Longbow/Gun balance should be.

Really the only change I would make is to add a Longbow militia to english cities, but that's just a personal preference.

[gardibolt]

Okay, so the only people whom the medieval English conquered were the Welsh....who were using the longbow.


So explain to me why I should be so impressed by the longbow?

[Lord Fluffy]

talk is good...no?

Anyhoo, a couple of things...longbowmen are not as tuned as athletes now adays. You don't need accuracy with those things rather than brute strength. Most of us archers nowadays need to train a lot because our day to day chores don't require the use of the archery specific muscles required to draw back the heavy poundage bows. But I do know one archer who is also a rock climber. Lo and behold this guy can be absent from archery for years at a time and return with his form intact, well at least 70-80% intact, while the rest of us can't be off the bow for 2 weeks and expect to do the same. So it could be the case that back then these people are most likely doing a lot of manual labor on a daily basis.

I remember reading that it was a requirement for everyone to shoot right after church every Sunday back in those days. Now I'm thinking, that's not nearly enough practice by today's standard. These days, the elite archers train 7 days a week for 10 hours a day. If you do a lot of rowing or a lot of work like trying to pull a cart up a steep hill or such, you are working those archery specific muscles. This is why also, I see these 2 construction workers that comes by every other months or so at the range and shoot 110 lb longbows. They shoot like crap, but they don't seem like they're straining that much pulling those bows back.

@AussieGiant: that's true, at 100m an arrow trajectory that would hit someone in the chest will probably hit the guy behind him in the crotch. But it's nowhere near as flat as trajectories of bullets. Keep in mind, while it's 160lbs it's also shooting very heavy arrows.

Did the welsh field as many longbows as the english did later on though? I don't think the longbows are super weapons, but it's no slouch either. Good enough to create chaos and panic in the opposing line.

[Stlaind]

Talk is good, however there is a point at which you need to put some modifications in and prove to people that what you are saying actually does improve the game.