was long bow really eclipsed by 1600?

I agree, a bow needs to be made made by a time served bowyer who takes many years training and apprentice to qualify.

They are not simple to things to make if you want a decent one

FNG

 

The success of crossbows in history serves as proof against your theory, Majorwoody. The only advantage a crossbow has over a regular bow is that anyone can use it without training - firing speed, range and penetration are all much better on normal bows. Still, Chinese armies since the 4th century BC and European armies of the late Medieval period used crossbows in massive numbers.

 

Yes but that easy training is a big advantage... IIRC during the late middle ages, many Knights actually appealed to the Vatican to have crossbows banned for their 'unfairness' as simply too many of the nobility were being killed by unskilled peasants with crossbows... Like you said, any dope could use a crossbow, and I imagine that Knights would prefer to face a skilled force of 200 bowmen, than an enormous horde of unskilled rabble with crossbows...

In my mind the crossbow played a larger part in doing away with the bow than the musket ever did... crossbows were really the logical step between bows to muskets when you think about it; though less efficient, they were more powerful and could penetrate steel armor far better. Thoug more expensive and complex I believe that they did not require the years of time to make than a longbow did... theorestically you could restock an army of crossbowmen far faster than you could an army of longbowmen, if you had the wealth to do so.

 

Probably echoing about a dozen people but....

By the time guns (excluding cannon) were available on the battle field, armor had been developed that could stop a bullet at the same range as a longbow. This made then ineffective. By the same token, trained archers were considerably more accurate than the early guns so a mix of both (archer snipers?) would have been your best bet.

On the other hand, bow use took years to perfect and many of the fighting bows required a full grown man to draw them (I think I've heard a figure around 20lbs draw but that's probably way off). Guns were a cheap [easy] replacement despite thier accuracy and fire rate drawbacks.

So yes, bows were obselete, but they took a lot of hitting to finaly vanish of the battle field.


Isn't this kind of like comparing an Arquebus to a Mimimi or MP-5?

 

No, there was no armour that could stop bullets. Longbow arrows yes, but in spite of all the attempts in this direction there was no practical armour that could stop a bullet. Accuracy was the great problem with early muskets, which is why they were really only useful when concentrated in volley fire.

120lbs is more like it for a longbow. Normal bows seem to be more around the 30-50lbs range.

How so?

 

Old out of date weapons (the bow and arrow) with modern weapons (the first guns...at the time anyways)

 

i was thinking along the lines of a compound bow of say 60 to 80 lbs draw weight which can be shot by any grown man ...against the tight muscket formations of the 1600s to the mid 1800s whose troops were mostley not armoured by anything thicker than a wool or cotton jacket...the accuracy of my bowmen would be not much better than the gun pointers they faced ...however the rate of fire would ,i still believe ,very telling indeed...also bows and arrows are much cheaper to produce and much more reliable especially in wet conditions..each archer carries his bow slung on his back plus 60 arrows and an 8 or 9 foot spear to outreach any bayonette or make an anti calvary hedgehog ..

 

Read Ricky's post on the previous page for a brief survey on why that would not work.

War is often ruled by opportunism, like most human action. If a certain development provides an advantage over the enemy, it is adopted immediately. From the first appearance of firearms we see them being adopted all over the place, replacing archers and heavy infantry gradually until only the musketmen remain. Apparently there was some advantage to the use of firearms that enabled armies thus equipped to dominate their enemies, including those still using archers.

 

roel ..i would appreciate if you stop useing historical facts to undermine my perfectly sound thesis...

 

But if it is not supported by historical facts, how sound can it be?

AFAIK one of the main reasons for the switch from regular bow to cross-bow was the ease of mastering aiming and firing (making troop training a matter of weeks not years). A major factor in the switch from cross-bow to gunpowder was the ease of reloading (crossbows, even with geared windlasses needed considerable muscle power to span while far less physical fitness was needed for muskets)

Tom

 

I suppose you might as well tell it to historians and specialists in those areas.

 

a small attempt at humor,ossian

 

:lol:

Good one. Reminds me of Hegel's famous remark when a student told him his lecture did not agree with the facts:

"All the worse for the facts."

 

Oh, no no no. If your bowstring gets wet then you have a useless bow on your hands. If your musket gets wet, you simply clean out the damp charge and put a new one in.

 

and those new charges would be kept in a zip locked baggies or perhaps a hypolon canoe stuff bag ?....cause if your in a really hard rain for days its really hard to keep all your stuff dry ...even today

 

lol - but the point is that a quick shower on the battlefield will be more of an inconvenience to bowmen than musketeers.

 

You know,if the bow really were useful.

Qing China,the Chinese in particular,would not have suffered their national disgrace at the hands of the British,Germans,Japanese,Americans,French,Italians,Russians and Austro-hungarians.

But i understand that was a latter period.

To put it into perspective,the MING Chinese had to use a "modern" navy to retake Taiwan from the Dutch.Perhaps it all put into perspective how useful the bow is then.

 

yes kaiser ,i would expect the bow to fair poorly against bolt action rifles or even percussion muzzle loaders...did the chinese in those battles have no firearms at all?......it .seems ironic when it was the chinese who invented black powder .....ricky i wasent aware that bowstrings of olden times were made useless by rain ...were the huns ,mongols and yeomen all shut down by a rainstorm ?....i guess it would be the best to fight these forces in the spring,winter or fall and be assured of an easy victory then..

 

The fall of rain ruining the strings on the Genoese crossbows was one of the contributory factors in the English winning at Agincourt. English archers kept their bowstrings under their hats...

 

yes , ricky , then the genoese cut their strings as a sign of surrender ..apparently this worked in italy but alas not so well with the english in france .....i read keegans great account of agincourt......but what of the huns ,mongols ,parthians ...were they disarmed by a heavy rain ...i never heard this before....