AHC: Have the crossbow remain a prominent militarily weapon

It's a widely held misconception that crossbows have short range. That's only true of European crossbows with very short length of draw necessitated by their lever trigger design. The Chinese crossbow triggers are more like a modern mechanism which allows light trigger pull and full length draw, giving it similar range to the longbow using arrows like bolts.

However as mentioned in the previous post, the projectiles have a parabolic trajectory making hit probability more difficult the further away the target and the faster that target is moving.

Another factor is manufacture of ammunition. Bolts were produced by skilled fletchers. Producing bolts with consistent weight and shaft stiffness is quite complicated. Those who could mass produce this with high level of quality control had a significant advantage. In China it has been discovered the surviving bolt heads from the Qin dynasty were precision cast with quality control marks.

Compare that to a gun, the high velocity makes ammunition quality less critical. Early guns were loaded with stones or fired multiple pellets like shotguns. Later on they used cast lead, which was made by soldiers in the field over a campfire. This combination of simplicity in logisitcs and high hit probabilty was worth the trade off of the cost of powder and longer range.

Musket bullets might be easier to produce, but that's not the full package. The gunpowder was something of an issue for many groups to keep supplies ready. Did the Americans struggle to maintain supplies until the French got involved?
 
Musket bullets might be easier to produce, but that's not the full package. The gunpowder was something of an issue for many groups to keep supplies ready. Did the Americans struggle to maintain supplies until the French got involved?

Again that doesn't offset the huge advantages that muskets offer. I mean of course a crossbow is going to be more effective than a musket with no gun-powder, but that's issue of logistics which is different altogether, I mean cutting supplies is vital in any war. Push comes to shove, if you can equip your men with muskets and supply them with the needed parts and munitions, they are going to be more effective than Crossbows in a battle for the reasons I posited. If you are in a situation where enemy has ample gun-powder and you resort to Crossbow bolts, you've probably already lost.

If you end up in trenches or something that could work. If you needed them on rifles you might need them on crossbows.

Thing is Crossbows are cumbersome. Looking at the picture you posted, that weapon is not going to be effective at all for close quarter fighting. A musket can be turned into a spear or club, the weapon you posted looks cool, but unwieldy.

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Someone with a fixed bayonet on a musket basically has a spear (standard thrust and stab). Crossbows as I said are a weird shape, it'd be awkward to fight with.
 
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Musket bullets might be easier to produce, but that's not the full package. The gunpowder was something of an issue for many groups to keep supplies ready. Did the Americans struggle to maintain supplies until the French got involved?
Actually it is fairly easy to mass produce the gunpowder as well. For the first two years they might have to import the pottasium nitrate, because that is the duration of a production circle until the 19th century. Including to start that circle gunpowder production needs chalk, sulfur, charcoal, water and an outhouse. None of that is all that hard to get. And frankly there was probably some production of pottasium nitrate ongoing, be it as part of local powder production or for salt meat. Even if not after these two years gunpowder will be locally in huge amounts with a limited amount of competence. Meanwhile every quarrel for a crossbow needs quite some time to be produced individually by a skilled craftsman.
 
Gunpowder certainly does require considerable investment, but with a gunpowder army you are replacing two skilled people, a marksman and a fletcher, with one musketman who can be trained in a week. Once you build the gunpowder infrastructure the payoff is decisive.

We also need to reconsider how muskets were actually used. I went to the Culloden battfield museum and how the two sides used muskets was enlightening. We tend to think of musket armies as something like 18th century professional armies standing in a line and reloading, but early firearms armies were more like the Scottish rebels. These men were primarily melee fighters who carried a gun. They're not trained to load their weapons quickly so they just rush the enemy, get close enough to fire one shot, drop their musket and continue the charge with sword and shield.

As far as silent killing is concerned, crossbows aren't really that quiet, they make more noise than conventional bows. Throughout history the weapon of choice for assassins was the dagger. The use of crossbows in special forces has quickly been supplanted with improvement in firearms suppressor technology.
 
We also need to reconsider how muskets were actually used. I went to the Culloden battfield museum and how the two sides used muskets was enlightening. We tend to think of musket armies as something like 18th century professional armies standing in a line and reloading, but early firearms armies were more like the Scottish rebels. These men were primarily melee fighters who carried a gun. They're not trained to load their weapons quickly so they just rush the enemy, get close enough to fire one shot, drop their musket and continue the charge with sword and shield.
I know that we are talking about crossbows verse muskets but as an aside Spanish ships in their Armada also went for the one shot then melee tactic. Not surpising when you consider the amount of faffing about needed to reload a cannon.

On the Chinese repeating crossbow, it is not very accurate (OK big deal if you are shooting at a massed formation) and bolts do not have much stopping power. That it was still in service during the Sino-Japanese War is probably due more to conservative attitudes than military effectiveness.
 
We also need to reconsider how muskets were actually used. I went to the Culloden battfield museum and how the two sides used muskets was enlightening. We tend to think of musket armies as something like 18th century professional armies standing in a line and reloading, but early firearms armies were more like the Scottish rebels. These men were primarily melee fighters who carried a gun. They're not trained to load their weapons quickly so they just rush the enemy, get close enough to fire one shot, drop their musket and continue the charge with sword and shield.

Not so - the Highland army was a melee army who had access to firearms. Gunpowder armies did not really exist until the bayonet and then the main tactic was the massed volley (later the British in particular introduced platoon firing). They did not (usually) engage in hand to hand combat unless it was defensively against cavalry or offensively against a prepared position like a village (when grenadiers also became useful).

Crossbows don''t really add anything over muskets. The best example I can think of is Poland where the infantry were primarily missile troops and they converted to firearms from crossbows very early (early 16th century). Firearms also allow a closer order than crossbowmen - particulalry if the crossbow / pavise carrier or crossbow/pavise carrier reloader organisation is used.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
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That basic concept seems easy enough to manage.

The point of a bayonet is, originally at least, to brace it against the ground and as such threaten horses. Might be a bit trickier with that placement - you'd foul your fellows in close order with your side-staves.
 
The point of a bayonet is, originally at least, to brace it against the ground and as such threaten horses. Might be a bit trickier with that placement - you'd foul your fellows in close order with your side-staves.

You could turn it sideways.
 
I've read, I think in the Smithsonian Magazine but don't quote me on that, that the early guns were actually inferior to both longbows and crossbows in rate of fire and accuracy (though they were more powerful). It was not untli the 19th century that guns actually surpassed bows in performance.

The reason guns replaced bows was logistics and economics. It takes years to train a competent bowman, and a lot of people just can't do it at all. On the other hand, you can conscript any swineherd and make him a competent arquebus user in a few months. Also, the making of bows (and just as importantly, arrows) was a genuine craft that also took years to learn, while the production of guns and rounds was much simpler.
 

Deimos

Banned
The "easy" way to meet the challenge would be to go the special forces route, specifically (mostly) ceremonial bodyguards. Beefeaters or the Swiss Guard, among others, could make the crossbow retain some prominence.

(The latter example seems to be hard to do because there was supposedly a papal ban on crossbows although the source of this ban is nowadays disputed.)
 
Doesn't that comment apply equally well to any ranged longarm?

Well that was the point about a musket plus bayonet - almost 6 1/2 feet long and basically a wood and steel polearm it was a half way decent deterrent to cavalry. A cross bow would be lucky to reach 3 feet plus the spike (12 inches?) and much less intimidating to cavalry (or infantry).
 
well right now IOTL, some police forces (Chinese ones, iirc) are starting to use bows with scopes on them as an alternative to firearms in the event of suicide bombers since an arrow won't accidentally detonate a bomb. also, the main advantage that bows have over firearms is that they're completely silent--even a suppressed firearm still makes noise. crossbowmen could emerge as an early, silent version of snipers.
Bows aren't silent in slightest. I'm not familiar with crossbows, but an above post says crossbows are louder than conventional bows and I do know conventional bows make quite a noise. Maybe not deafening like gunpowder, but if you were a covert agent and you shot someone with a bow, there is no way anybody within a hundred yards or so won't notice.
I know that we are talking about crossbows verse muskets but as an aside Spanish ships in their Armada also went for the one shot then melee tactic. Not surpising when you consider the amount of faffing about needed to reload a cannon.

On the Chinese repeating crossbow, it is not very accurate (OK big deal if you are shooting at a massed formation) and bolts do not have much stopping power. That it was still in service during the Sino-Japanese War is probably due more to conservative attitudes than military effectiveness.
I don't think the Spanish tactic was standard of their time, the gunnery of the English was far superior and unlike the Spanish their guns had wheeled carriages that allowed the guns to recoil more and be efficiently reloaded after firing. You're right about the Chinese crossbow though, the Qing were famously backwards and behind the times in military development. They still relied on their Manchu archers during the Opium Wars and most of their firearms were rather antiquated.
 
Delay the invention of gunpowder a bit and that could help. I mean it was mostly an accident OTL, so it could plausibly be delayed a few centuries. By that point the technology of crossbows will probably have been substantially streamlined.
 
I'm not sure what can really be done to make a crossbow a more viable choice than a gun in warfare. You must remember that by the end of the Middle Ages European metallurgy was sufficiently advanced to create armor that could easily withstand any bolt or arrow. Even in the 1500's there were armor pieces capable of withstanding caliver bullets, hence the reliance on muskets by the start of the next century. In any case, I just can't really imagine how a crossbow can be streamlined enough to make it a viable weapon beyond that point.
 
I agree with those who don't see the cross bow being a viable alternative to the musket. Lets keep in mind that the crossbow had been around in Europe since before the Roman Empire. Yet, after centuries, it never assumed the dominant position that gunpowder weapons were able to assume in just a few centuries. For sure the crossbow was important in the armies that used them, but not to the same extent as the musket. Here are a couple of thoughts as to why the crossbow ultimately lost out.

1. Density of fire. Crossbows take up more space, even more when you consider the effort of reloading compared to muskets. That allows muskets to be closer together when they fired.

2. Shock effect. Seeing a flight of cross bows fired together would be enough to make any soldier standing opposite them very nervous, but I have to believe the terror of watching a hundred soldiers firing muskets simultaneously would be even more devastating.

3. Smoke, lots and lots of smoke. The biggest advantage the crossbow had over the snoothbore musket was greater accuracy at range. A few volleys of fire and visibility made the notion of accurate fire laughable.

4. Logistics. A soldier could march with 60 rounds for a musket, I doubt the same would be true for 60 bolts for a crossbow.

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Bill
 
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