AH Challenge: Bow and Arrow Survives

What is the most feasible way for the bow and arrow, including types such as the crossbow, to be accepted, useful military weaponry for as long as possible?

Maybe it's just a pipe dream, but I'm having fun imagining ranks of English longbowmen fighting the French in the 1700s...

It could be the main symbolic weapon in Brittain, like sword is today, because of it's importance in Brittish history. Interesting thought.

I know that Ben Franklin proposed that the Continental Army use the longbow as its main weapon of choice during the American Revolution, since it was easy to produce, miantain, and provide ammunition for. Plus it was silent and quicker to reload than muskets. Maybe if the Continentals did use it effectively it would have made more of an impact on other Western armies.

You could also butterfly away a military use for gunpowder, though seems seems hard to do given our nature to employ everything to the entirety of its destructive potential.

-John

The problem with the bow remaining the mainstay of the military is ease of training: a good archer requires training, years of it, while any average Joe can point a gun and pull a trigger.

A lot would depend on the type of bow IMO. Years ago when I was in Scouts we took a group of inner city kids to an archery range (don't ask me why). Within minutes they were putting shots in the black at 25 feet. Now this was with recurves probably around 50 pound draw. A longbow is a whole different animal but those were the type of bows they used at scout camps and kids who had never shot a bow before that week at camp would be getting archery merit badges by the end of the week. IIRC the ranges opened up to something like 25 or 30 yards. So the idea of the bow being used as a mass fire weapon isn't really all that bad. One bad thing about bows though. The other guy can always shoot your ammo back at you.

I can see a couple of scenarios, actually.The first is the American Civil War. Perhaps the Confederates realize that they will never match the output of Nothern munitions factories, so they decided to totally eschew muskets for the infantry and equip them as bowmen instead, while providing pikemen for close in protection. Another scenario is World War I. I could see crossbows being adopted for trench raids. I could also see larger, fixed repeating crossbows with a 20 or 30 bolt clip augmenting machine gun emplacements.

The use of pikemen would be ridiculous: they'd be shot to pieces before they can get in close, I doubt archery, even massed, can compete with a massive musket volley up close.

As for WW1, once the bolt action rifle and the machine gun had been perfected, there is no excuse to use bows and arrows, since they no longer have the speed advantage they had over muzzle loaders.

Your POD HAS to be in the ARW or earlier, otherwise it's ASB. The Ben Franklin strategy could work, but I can only see it lasting till 1870, when manufacturing capabilities simply out match the necessity of the bow and arrow or even the cross bow. Especially since the gatling gun would have been invented by now. Only butterflies could save you from a machine gun, which I guess in this case isn't so bad. But by 1900, it'd be rifles for practical military use, and bows/crossbows for purely ceremonial. There's just no way around it.

However, an American Civil War with a 20 bolt clip would be very interesting indeed.

Hannibal.Caesar said:

What is the most feasible way for the bow and arrow, including types such as the crossbow, to be accepted, useful military weaponry for as long as possible?

Maybe it's just a pipe dream, but I'm having fun imagining ranks of English longbowmen fighting the French in the 1700s...

Click to expand...

It wouldn't be the weapon; it would be the ammo. The firearrow was an arrow that had a gunpowder charge near the tip. A match could be tied to the fuse and ignited when it is shot. The arrow explodes when the burning fuse hits the gunpowder charge. These arrows aren't returned. The only problem is the timing of the fuse; too long and you can get out of the blast zone; too short and it detonates before it reaches its target.

Or you could have a DTF in the 16~1700's