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I've recently finished reading Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest series, which largely featured the use and power of the English longbow. Cornwell didn't stint on his historical accuracy in this regard. The longbow was an impressive weapon of war that had a definate impact during the Hundred Years War, notably at Poitiers, Crecy and, of course Agincourt. However, there were notable problems with the bow, including the time it took to build the requisite muscle and train an archer to handle the weapons. Eventually, firearms would overcome the problems of training and strength, and the longbow would fade away as a practical weapon of war.

The problems with firearms at the time of the Hundred Years War and later were (as I understand them) the lack of developed resources for making gunpowder, the incredibly slow rate of fire, especially for the arquebus and matchlocks, and the incredible inaccuracy. The upsides were the relative quick training times for troops (weeks instead of months or years), lack of strength needed (compared to the longbow) and armor-piercing ability.

I was wondering what the impact might have been if inventive archers had developed the compound bow (albeit primitive varient) during this time, while nations were still flirting with gunpowder. Cams and pulleys were not unknown, and their mechanical advantages were obvious, but would this have been significant enough to keep bows on the field of battle, or even secure them there, while firearms remained something only the rich and priveledged could play with?

What other impacts might the introduction of a compound bow have had?

To my my thinking, a compound bow would overcome the problems of the training issues of the longbow, the rate of fire for the crossbow and the innaccuracy of early muskets and arquebus. If it came early enough, it might not stymie the development of cannon for seige-craft and battlefield tactics, but it might be enough to place other firearms on the backburner for their lack of comparable advantages and disadvantages.
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