Was archery abandoned too soon?

I'm a big fan of archery and I've always wandered, why was it abandoned so quickly to be replaced by firearms. Certainly the bow and arrow was superior to the early matchstick and even flintlock muskets. Especially when using recurve bows. You can shoot arrows faster and straighter than early guns. Plus less smoke and one can often retrive arrows so less ammo. Plus archers can stay safe behind defenses and shoot over them in a parabolic path.

Even in the civil war I've often wondered how a regiment of archers could have been used being able to shoot over defenses. Plus bows are silent so they could be used by special forces.

What do you all think?

Time needed to train a skilled archer: 20+ years
Time needed to train a skilled gunner: 6 weeks

Yes, training times - plus changes in military tactics in 16th century. Cavalry became incredibly armoured with Maximilian/Gothic full plate armours and barded warhorses. Additionally, such heavy cavalry triggered widespread appearance of pikemen formations. You don`t need to have accuracy when shooting at densely packed pikemen - and coordinated volley from group of arquebusiers/musketeers was effective enough.

Recursive bows were not adopted outside Hungary and archery in european warfare was not dominant except in a few marginal countries: the weapons replaced by firearms were the crossbow, the lance and the old siege train.

That said
- Neither the medieval bow nor crossbow can be strung under the rain, because it risks breaking the wood. Thus negating one of the perceived advantages.
- The early matchlock musket was drilled with a possible range of 200 yards, better or equivalent to a crossbow or a bow, accuracy went down as people realized weight of fire was more important than range (useful range of combat has barely gone up in 6 centuries) and so went for less accurate and looser bullets. Accuracy of the bow is also overstated as in combat it would be fired like artillery and thus lose this advantage.
- It costs less to equip an army with muskets than bows or crossbows and it also takes less training; if you can arm three times the force for the same price, you have a massive fire multiplier.
- The rate of fire of the medieval bow in warfare is also overstated, as prussian drill could reach it by the 18th century and rapid fire would exhaust the archers. As is its accuracy, as I said, no, archers didn't "shoot straight" in field combat.
- Bows are not silent. You also can't retrieve significant amounts of arrows on a battlefield. And making arrows requires skilled craftsmen apart from bowiers; making bullets requires some lead and a little mold and can be done on the campaign trail for cheaper.
- The german reiters and french pistoliers showed the superiority of the pistol to the lance, that, too was one of the weapons replaced by firearms, and it had a devastating effect during the wars of religion, leading to the royal armies ditching the lance entirely by the time Henry IV was crowned, the lance was only reintroduced in the 19th century due to polish inspirations and even then a lot of polish lancers preferred to use sabre and pistol.
- By the 16th century, cavalry armor in europe had become nearly impervious to arrows.
- Finally, Yew had to be protected from extinction (numerous english laws were about that), a few more centuries of warfare would have gone through the reserves.

England kept the longbow longer because it had horribly low gunpowder supplies through the 16th century: at Calais, the cannons defending the city barely managed to shoot more than a few yards past the walls (and some were wooden mockups to give the impression the place was more heavily defended). One of the reasons for that was that it had to import most of its salpetre. A few pamphlets arguing for longbows were also printed even at the time of the civil war but the pro-firearms arguments won out.

Easier to train someone how to shoot a target with a Gun than a Bow.

probably Easier and cheaper to make ammunition for a muzzle loader than a Bow. All you need is the mold, some lead and a fire.
with arrows you need the head, shaft, feathers...
and if they get damaged, you're out of ammo.

and in the event you do run out of ammo, the rifle makes a better Melee weapon, than a Bow would. slap a blade on it and Boom! spear.

also, sense you mentioned special forces, if you're trying to be stealthy, killing someone with an arrow leaves a rather noticeable mark.
bullets, not so much.

The issue of logistics is a large one. Training an archer takes quite a long time in comparison to an arquebus, and training a GOOD archer force takes practically a lifetime (see: Medieval England). It is, in short, extremely expensive and difficult to maintain a large pool of archers, and archers, in comparison to arquebusers, are much harder to replace as they are attrited away in any real campaign (especially the variety that could make a significant difference in battle, i.e. longbows. The English had to implement extraordinary subsidies and benefits to encourage bowmanship). More to the point, while highly skilled longbowmen, for example, could potentially put out a higher rate of fire, both RoF and overall archer performance depend greatly on the archer's health (which, in campaigns, is most certainly subject to deterioration), and, their RoF will certainly decrease throughout a battle due to fatigue. Moreover, building an arquebus and providing ammunition for it is far cheaper (and easier [bullets vs arrows]); yet another great blow to the bow.

Another issue was armor. As the Middle Age progressed, both the increased prevalence and quality of armor on even common infantrymen significantly reduced the lethality of longbows, and bows in general. Thus, arquebuses were becoming increasingly lethal, whereas bows lost ground to both guns and crossbows (the latter being phased out due to cost).

Arquebuses were also far most useful in close-combat situations. That is, a bow is virtually useless if an enemy gets close, and an arquebus could be used to club someone to death. It was also far more useful in fortified positions, as the arquebus allowed the soldier to take cover, and is in general far less unwieldy then the bow in confined spaces.


In short, the bow's obsolescence couldn't really be delayed. Guns were, in effect, cheaper to produce, far better in close quarters and fortified positions, far easier to use, far easier to supply, and more lethal.

'sides, shot n' pike (or was it the other way around?) sounds better than arrow n' pike .

Bowmen sick with dysentery, down with fatigue, thirsty and hunger are not going to be any good. With muskets, all you have to be is strong enough to stand and lift your weapon.

Tech proves to be far more of a factor than skill; the latter matters more only if both sides are more or less equal in tech.

Not to mention that guns are far easier to use.

Even the Native Americans grabbed at taking firearms whenever they could.

lothaw said:

Even the Native Americans grabbed at taking firearms whenever they could.

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Non-compound bows had the disadvantage of having practical ranges comparable to a cavalry pistol (the long bow was compound, and the only native americans who knew how to make compound bows were the inuits). I made a mistake on the point of yew, even with all the best intentions by the crown, the yew did go extinct in the 16th century in the isles and wood had to be imported, it was only reintroduced later. The japanese also adopted muskets en masse though, despite the supposed superiority of the Yumi.

One point I forgot: the niche archery in war would fill is field artillery, except less artillerists with a good grounding in maths would be incredibly cheaper, more accurate and more devastating than the longbow (in fact a longbow formation, apart from the main body of troop, would be chopped up pretty badly by counter-artillery fire compared to shooting back at cannons, with a much better range: even in the HYW this was visible, Jean Bureau's artillery was key in that aspect, with France having for a while the second artillery park in Europe after the ottomans, and the third in the entire world IIRC).

Originally posted by Fenrir_Angerboda

Easier and cheaper to make ammunition for a muzzle loader than a Bow. All you need is the mold, some lead and a fire.
with arrows you need the head, shaft, feathers...
and if they get damaged, you're out of ammo.

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One tiny problem. Yes, to make bullets, you need only lead and fire. But tu fire them you also need gunpowder - and that is not so easy to make in field conditions. You run out of gunpowder or just one of its ingedients (e.g. saltpeter) and your firearm becomes just a clumsy club - although admittedly, better melee weapon than a bow.

On another thread I posted this:

Stephen said:

In defence of the musketoon.

They are cheaper lower maintenance and easier to use than the more elaborate crossbows. The most powerful windlass spaned crossbows can take over a minute to load.

Those 300 yard ranges for longbows are only with clout shooting there point shooting distance is similar to the musket.

They are easier to poke out of loopholes.

With a bayonet they double as spearmen.

A musket uses chemical energy instead of muscle energy, a longbow or crossbow man would get exausted after repeated shooting.

Your troops can stand closer together than they can with the more bulky crossbows allowing more firepower for the same frontal area in a formation, And unlike longbowmen the front rank can kneel or crouch etc allowing more ranks to participate in the point shooting. So instead of comparing a longbowmens 12 shots a minute with a musketeers 2 perhaps you should compare a langbowman to 3 or even 6 musketeers.

By the end of th hundred years war good armor was pretty much arrow proof thats why us English lost in the end. In the 16th century some breast plates got thicker to protect against arquebuses some examples are very heavy, the full sized musket with a 1 inch ball and 4 foot barrel could blast through any of the wearable ones.

A large soft lead ball traveling over a thousand feet per second makes one hell of a mess of whoever in hits.

After making armor obsolete in the 18th century they shrank again due to the lack of armoured oposition, which make on wonder wether an ISOT medieval army could make an impact. But the Red coats who conquered Idia seemed to do OK against large bodies of archers and armoured soldiers and cavalry etc.

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seraphim74 said:

Originally posted by Fenrir_Angerboda


One tiny problem. Yes, to make bullets, you need only lead and fire. But tu fire them you also need gunpowder - and that is not so easy to make in field conditions. You run out of gunpowder or just one of its ingedients (e.g. saltpeter) and your firearm becomes just a clumsy club - although admittedly, better melee weapon than a bow.

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Yes, but by the time black powder weaponry was giving archery a serious run on the battlefield, the kinds of arrowheads required to make it through plate and heavy chain mail armor could not be forged in battlefield situations either. So while the logistical situation for both is somewhat difficult as compared to when one could sharpen sticks and attach feathers to them, the firearms came to have so many other advantages that they were well worth the difficulty in "keeping your powder dry."

As for the OP's question, look at the battlefield results; the armies that adopted firearms and developed them began winning wars against their bow-armed opponents (see: Gunpowder Empires). Those were actually a little later, but siege warfare certainly pointed people towards cannons, and cannons were shrunk down and deployed in mass formations as arquebusiers. If they weren't more effective in some way, they would never have been used on a large scale.

Logistics

Enough gunpowder for quite a few shots fits into one powder horn or other container for quite a few shots, and takes less space than one or two arrows. Bullets are also very small. So you need fewer wagons--always a critical considration in warfare. And, you can carry the bullets as lead ingots--even more compact--and forge while camped. You can also carry extra powder, and make bullets from window leading, pipe, or whatever. You can even break up the powder for cannon loads into musket loads.

seraphim74 said:

One tiny problem. Yes, to make bullets, you need only lead and fire. But tu fire them you also need gunpowder - and that is not so easy to make in field conditions. You run out of gunpowder or just one of its ingedients (e.g. saltpeter) and your firearm becomes just a clumsy club - although admittedly, better melee weapon than a bow.

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Gun powder is easier to pack than arrows, and takes less time to make.
Gunpowder all you really have to do is make enough of it for each of your men to get off some shots and get ready for the Bayonets.
Besides if you're running our of Saltpeter at this point, you better be either winning or getting ready to surrender.

you spend quite alot of time and other materials making the arrows.

seraphim74 said:

One tiny problem. Yes, to make bullets, you need only lead and fire. But tu fire them you also need gunpowder - and that is not so easy to make in field conditions. You run out of gunpowder or just one of its ingedients (e.g. saltpeter) and your firearm becomes just a clumsy club - although admittedly, better melee weapon than a bow.

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Same thing goes with arrows, too. Thankfully, that's why you have baggage trains where your supplies are kept.

And I should point out that arrows are much MUCH harder (and expensive!) to make and maintain then gunpowder and bullets. And are less space-efficient than gunpowder or lead bars.

I'm going to specifically address two recurve-bow cultures, Turkey and Russia.

Both relied on noble archers on horseback, armour and all, as their primary military force, as the Middle Ages rolled to a close. Both stuck exclusively with gunpowder weapons by the end of the 17th c.

That said, there's ample examples of the recurve bow being very effective, whether on horseback or as used by Turkish marines. Nonetheless, the elite infantry corps, Streltsi and Jeniceri, were both handgun formations.

Part of it is probably the length of training required and the increasing numbers of troops in combat. The noble armoured archer trained on his own time, and mostly fought in petite guerre against other princes and such. The people who trained him were either privately hired or even family members.

When the Empires arose, campainging seasons became long and the numbers involved very large, and consequently also the losses. The mounted archer is very very hard to replace. The economics probably could not keep up with it.

Both Russians and Turks faced increasing amounts of Western opposition 16th onwards. The mail-lamellars both wore can stop arrows reliably, and bullets rarely, but western plate can stop both. However, with a pistol you still have a chance, and someone did point out that the Reitar did kill off the lancer. Since Russian and Turkish horse always fought in a loose manner, the pistol was a natural replacement for the bow.

When Russia recovered after the time of troubles, pistols quickly replaced what saadaks people stil carried. The Western-Style Regiments also included no archers at all, so the tradition died out.

That said, Russia was fielding native Bashkir/Kirgiz/Kalmyck (Kalmycks may have been armed as Cossacks, lance and pistol) regiments in the 7YW, Suvorov's campaigns, and iirc maybe even the Coalition wars. And they performed just fine. Some may still have been armed with bow and arrows.

A well-made composite bow is still deadly, though I'm uncertain as to its effectiveness against armored units, Civilization II not withstanding.

Plus, guns' rate of fire has skyrocketed over the year. Maybe somebody saw that potential back when both weapons were used.

seraphim74 said:

...and your firearm becomes just a clumsy club - although admittedly, better melee weapon than a bow.

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Two words: Fix. Bayonets.