American frontiersmen use longbows as well as muskets/rifles

[Melvin Loh]

So WI the likes of Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone had become as good marksmen with the bow & arrow as with their firearms ?

[Flocculencio]

They'd have had a lot less time to go wandering. Training to use a longbow properly takes years of dedicated practice.

[Ran Exilis]

Flocc's absolutely right.

Crossbows however, are a completely different story...

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by Ran Exilis

Flocc's absolutely right.

Crossbows however, are a completely different story...

That's true. I'm not sure if a crossbow would take longer to crank up than an early-19th C musket would take to reload. IIRC trained British regulars could fire three or four times a minute with their muskets so I'll assume the same for Crockett and his ilk. That's probably a bit faster than a crossbow though the crossbow could probably get a bit more accuracy.

[Chengar Qordath]

Originally Posted by Flocculencio

That's true. I'm not sure if a crossbow would take longer to crank up than an early-19th C musket would take to reload. IIRC trained British regulars could fire three or four times a minute with their muskets so I'll assume the same for Crockett and his ilk. That's probably a bit faster than a crossbow though the crossbow could probably get a bit more accuracy.

The firing rate of a crossbow depends a lot on how heavy the draw is and what kind of reloading mechanism it uses; I'd assume if they're going to use a crossbow they'll use one of the more practical fast-firing ones that can put out about four shots a minute. However, that really doesn't give an advantage compared to a gun, especially since skilled bowmakers and fletchers are going to be fairly hard to find compared to gunsmiths.

[EmptyOne]

Originally Posted by Flocculencio

IIRC trained British regulars could fire three or four times a minute with their muskets so I'll assume the same for Crockett and his ilk.

Frontiersmen took much longer to load than soldiers. Carefully measured powder, freshly greased patches, trimmed musketballs and longer barrels all add to load time ... and accuracy.

[The Mists Of Time]

As I read this two thoughts come to my mind.

During The Revolutionary War, I believe gunpowder pretty much had to be imported, so they tried to conserve on gunpowder. Had frontiersmen been as accurate with a longbow, or better still a crossbow, and had a number of Continental soldiers been equipped with crossbows, it might have made the gunpowder concerns less of a problem. Perhaps more powder could have been reserved for cannons.

An advantage for the bow is that a rifle makes a loud sharp "crack" when it fires. If you cannot see where a shot came from, you can hear just about where it came from. The bow, even the arrow in flight is almost silent.

I'm thinking in TTL frontiersmen would probably have used a crossbow instead of a longbow. Easier to learn to use, smaller and easier to carry, more accurate. While it would be hard for a crossbow to replace the handgun, there might have been somewhat less reliance on firearms. Hunters today might hunt with crossbows, gun collectors might have several crossbows in their collection.

Had the crossbow figured prominantly in America's westward movement, the crossbow today might be as much a part of America's gun mentality as rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Had that been the case it would be interesting to see the technology of today's crossbows in terms of power, accuracy, and ease of use.

[Riain]

The longbow was the machine-gun of the middle ages, it had power, range and rate of fire. If the US could gather btns or regts of longbowmen for their stand-up battles they could fire 3 or 4 shots to a gun's 1 at similar range. I once heard a quote to that effect on a doco.

[CDurham]

Originally Posted by The Mists Of Time

I'm thinking in TTL frontiersmen would probably have used a crossbow instead of a longbow. Easier to learn to use, smaller and easier to carry, more accurate. While it would be hard for a crossbow to replace the handgun, there might have been somewhat less reliance on firearms. Hunters today might hunt with crossbows, gun collectors might have several crossbows in their collection.

While I am not a hunter, I believe that there is a session of the hunting season wich is for archers only. And if you go to a hunting supply store, you can find both compound bows and crossbows

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by EmptyOne

Frontiersmen took much longer to load than soldiers. Carefully measured powder, freshly greased patches, trimmed musketballs and longer barrels all add to load time ... and accuracy.

Ah, so more comparable to riflemen.

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by Riain

The longbow was the machine-gun of the middle ages, it had power, range and rate of fire. If the US could gather btns or regts of longbowmen for their stand-up battles they could fire 3 or 4 shots to a gun's 1 at similar range. I once heard a quote to that effect on a doco.

The trouble is gathering enough longbowmen in the first place. The English only managed to raise longbowmen en masse because there was a tradition of the yeomanry using said weapon in the first place. Even then English kings had to resort to legal measure (banning all other games and sports at certain times) to ensure that said yeomen got in the required amount of practice- which they weren't too keen on because it was really hard work and extremely time-intensive.

Yes, a properly trained longbowman is extremely effective but that means that if you lose a longbowman you lose years of training and experience and have the problem of replacing him from a limited pool of sufficiently trained yeomen. On the other hand, if your longbowmen slaughter a bunch of the enemy's musketmen, the enemy just has to grab another bunch of peasants by the scruff of their necks and tell them which end of the musket is which and hey presto- new battalion.

[Firestorm]

Originally Posted by CDurham

While I am not a hunter, I believe that there is a session of the hunting season wich is for archers only. And if you go to a hunting supply store, you can find both compound bows and crossbows

Yeah, there's upwards to four million dedicated bow hunters in the United States so that's over a quarter of all hunters, probably at least as many who use bows on occasion.

No idea how many people fish with bows.

[Riain]

The 100 years war showed how hard it was to destroy a longbow army in battle, with slow loading crossbows standing in for slow loading muskets. Although the longbow, and composite bow for that matter, takes a lot of training and practice to realise their potential there is a lot of potential to realise.

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by Riain

The 100 years war showed how hard it was to destroy a longbow army in battle, with slow loading crossbows standing in for slow loading muskets. Although the longbow, and composite bow for that matter, takes a lot of training and practice to realise their potential there is a lot of potential to realise.

Still doesn't make 'em cost effective. Muskets are even cheaper to produce than crossbows. The English position was a unique one where they had a pool of trained yeomen to draw on and even then they had to take drastic and ultimately ineffective measures to try to stop said pool shrinking.

Instead of concentrating resources on the intensive training of longbowmen it's more effective to do what the British did in OTL and simply concentrate your resources on producing an army of very well trained musketmen (which is still going to be cheaper and faster than training an equivalent number of longbowmen)

[Riain]

The scenario calls for the frontiersmen to be proficient with the longbow as a matter of course, like the English yeomanry was in the 1300s. If the people can already shoot the bow it's just a matter of drilling them into an army unit. If there were several, or tens of, thousands of archers on the American frontier they could be formed into powerful and possibly decisive army units.

[Derek Jackson]

Query were not Native American bows a little different from the English longbow.

How quickly could they reload and did folk have to be warriors to use them.

Oh and what about hunting- it strikes me that a musket shot which misses tends to tell more creatures that something may be up than an arrow which also misses.

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by Derek Jackson

Query were not Native American bows a little different from the English longbow.

I doubt they had the massive draw weights that longbows had (100-150 pounds)- they've found skeletons of longbowmen and these fellows had hugely deformed arms with bone spurs which grew to support their overdeveloped muscles.

Then again I'm not too familiar with Native American bows

[Torqumada]

Native American bows were shorter and had less of a draw than traditional English style longbows. Native American bows were usually no more than 48 inches long, vs 60 to 72+ inches for an English longbow. Native American bows would have a pull of about 50lbs, while the English longbow would have a pull of upwards of 100lbs. Remember the environments they were developed in. European bowmakers had to come up with bows that could penetrate metal armor, which is something Native Americans did not have to do.

Torqumada

[Dave Howery]

NA bows reflected the environment they were in. Eastern tribes developed simple one piece bows, short range and low power, which were suited well towards the forests. Out west, plains and desert tribes (where wood was scarcer), developed a type of compound bow, stronger and further ranged.

As for rates of fire... the frontiersmen also had rifled firearms, where army troops had smoothbore muskets... it's a lot slower to load a rifle, but the payoff is longer range....

[Earling]

The 100 years war showed how hard it was to destroy a longbow army in battle, with slow loading crossbows standing in for slow loading muskets. Although the longbow, and composite bow for that matter, takes a lot of training and practice to realise their potential there is a lot of potential to realise.

Doesn't the 100 years war also show how easy it is to destroy a longbow army in war? I think it was the battle of Patay.. once alot of people trained to use the Longbow were massacred the English couldn't remuster the number required to recover their position in France.