archaeogeek
Banned
To be fair even with bayonets they were sometimes used as clubs. It's annoying to take out a bayonet after you just skewered an enemy fusilier. And yes people used them as clubs, pretty well. Try that with your yew stick
Was archery abandoned too soon?
- Thread starter PrairieVoice
- Start date
To be fair even with bayonets they were sometimes used as clubs. It's annoying to take out a bayonet after you just skewered an enemy fusilier. And yes people used them as clubs, pretty well. Try that with your yew stick
Nevertheless, it's much more fun to have archery instead of firearms.
Whenever I play historical games, I always prefer pre-firearms eras compared to firearms ones, particularly the modern era.
AFAIK many people in civilization forum also prefer the pre-firearms era.
Modern eras with modern guns bore you fast.
I just cannot feel any "romance" when it comes to war with firearms..
Needless to say when it becomes some sort of "nuke war" - mutual destruction
Whenever I play historical games, I always prefer pre-firearms eras compared to firearms ones, particularly the modern era.
AFAIK many people in civilization forum also prefer the pre-firearms era.
Modern eras with modern guns bore you fast.
I just cannot feel any "romance" when it comes to war with firearms..
Needless to say when it becomes some sort of "nuke war" - mutual destruction
archaeogeek
Banned
Nevertheless, it's much more fun to have archery instead of firearms.
Whenever I play historical games, I always prefer pre-firearms eras compared to firearms ones, particularly the modern era.
AFAIK many people in civilization forum also prefer the pre-firearms era.
Modern eras with modern guns bore you fast.
I just cannot feel any "romance" when it comes to war with firearms..
Needless to say when it becomes some sort of "nuke war" - mutual destruction
(completely off topic: I know, the romantic appeal of it is hard, especially when you get it hammered that the bow was somehow magically superior by romantic histories. It's common in roleplaying groups too, but that's because people don't have the image of this (while the image they have of the archer is, basically, wrong). It's still masses of men fighting each other rather messily, and holding the line when you're getting shot at by everyone and everything is pretty courageous, until the 19th century war is still not mass mobilization either so it's not still that huge industrial beast: the three musketeers has a few scenes during the siege of Calais for example - it took me some effort to win my rpg group to my little schizotech late 18th century-ish alt earth setting but in the end they had fun and gave in).
Weren't the scenes in The Three Musketeers at the Siege of La Rochelle?
archaeogeek
Banned
Yes, La Rochelle, my brain had a dumb... The siege of Calais shows up in Fortune de France, the breakfast under enemy fire is at La Rochelle
And IRL Antoine de Bourbon (the king consort of Navarra and Henry IV's father) died pulling a similar stunt during the early part of the wars of religion, having breakfast in plain sight in the middle of a siege as a dare; he was less lucky and a huguenot musketeer shot him halfway through (he was on the catholic side while his wife and son were on the huguenot side; then again the house of Lorraine was probably the only one not on both sides ).
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The whole aspect of the bowman having to train for 20 years with endless hours at the butts in some way BS for the idea of using massed archers to give volley or indirect fire. Take the average farm boy used to doing physical labour for 12 to 16 hours a day and just how long will it take to get him drawing a 75 lb stave and shooting at a massed target 100 yards away and dropping plunging fire into a 5 to 10 yard diameter circle And doing ten to 15 times a minute. I have personally seen inner city kids who had never held a bow in their lives hitting bulls at 50 feet inside of 15 minutes at the range. Granted these where probably onlt 25 to 30 lb bows but they were picking it up that quick. Not everybody has to be able to hit an individual man sized target at 200 to 250 yards with a 120 lb stave. And your flintlock musket is pretty much useless in the rain too
elkarlo
Banned
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 .
For the crossbow to compete it got absurdly powerful. It went from belt draw, to crank. During the siege of Malta the Knights were low on power, and found their store of old crossbows. Many were 400lb+ draws. Simply amazing, and absurd, not too mention kinda funny.
archaeogeek
Banned
A 150 pounds draw bow at 100 yards requires specific training which a farmhand won't get without training his ass out at the range; the skeletons of professional archers from england show a number of deformations on one arm and the fingers of the same hand because of this. By comparison accuracy drills in the 17th century could expect recruits to hit a post-sized target at 100 yards, up to 200 yards; effective accurate range only went down in the 18th century as field artillery became more flexible and rate of fire increased. Indirect fire is also not exactly efficient compared to direct fire for range weaponry (archery in european warfare was marginal not dominant; the one power that fielded longbow-equipped archers en masse ultimately lost the war where it used them enough to have a few victories where it was critical).
And pointing out that bows are useless in the rain wasn't some sort of "hah muskets would work", I was preempting the point everyone keeps parroting about (cross)bows without thinking it through.
And if I wanted someone assassinated, I'd have the murderer dressed as a monk and carrying a pistol...
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elkarlo
Banned
Very true, battles were not like Dynasty warriors, were people were cutting swaths in each other's ranks. Look at most battles, and usually about 20% of those who participated died outright in the battle. It was messy, and that explains how thousands of men swinging swords, or shooting muskets managed to usually not kill anyone.
Also to note, talk to anyone in Vietnam or prior, and 90% of the personal were just cannon fodder, and did nothing or little.
Sior
Banned
All well and good shooting a half dozen arrows then waiting for your next turn, the Welsh Bowmen were capable of keeping up the 10 arrows a minute for over an hour, that takes serious strength!
Amen. I occasionally practice with a 50lb English-style longbow (meaning a selfbow, though of hickory and not yew, none of that pulley or recurve or composite crap) and it does get tiring if you keep it up long enough. Especially for your fingers. They get quite raw.
60lbs? wimp. My LB is 75 and thats hard enough. Have also shot matchlock, flintlock, percussion etc etc etc and yup its all down to training time. To have a true archer shooting (NOT FIRING) a warbow with 140lb drawweight and capable to doing 15 a minute takes many years wheras a basic musketeer takes minutes (well ok a few weeks to get him drilled too)
oh Jack Churchill in WW2 shot a German with his longbow-mind you Mad Jack did all sorts of weird stuff.
oh Jack Churchill in WW2 shot a German with his longbow-mind you Mad Jack did all sorts of weird stuff.
Just as a quick aside - now that you mention it, other archer empires (Western Sahel, like Mali and such) really did have massed archers...who did exactly as you said.
They shot until they were tired/ran out of arrows, and then withdrew from combat for the rest of the battle. Just like that. The noble horsemen were normally the final deciding factor.
elkarlo said:
True, true. But this probably was a legacy of Spanish fighting, where marines and such fielded crossbows and guns in about equal proportions. Crossbows were a lot more common during the conquests of the Americas than guns, too.
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Snake Featherston
Banned
I dunno, when the Samurai discovered firearms they took to them pretty quickly. The Tokugawa Shogunate was even one of the first states with strict gun control laws. And yes, A-Team Firing was pretty much how early guns worked. However given that wars are expensive it's a good bet to try to get larger armies with simpler training than smaller, but more expensive armies of better-trained hardcore soldiers.
Exactly. 75lb were never used for the longbow, those were much greater. 75-80 is what you get with a good flatbow IIRC. This is also why the idea of girls = archers is highly suspect if you're going to make them draw longbows. Also composite bows rule!
archaeogeek
Banned
Spain, too, they banned pistols because they were seen as a weapon of murder only (that is until they realized that one of the things that was getting murdered by pistols was their cavalry, although the more traditional murder part they certainly knew about, since they had William of Orange killed that way; the assassin basically shot him with the pistol right on him.
Also a compound bow is a force multiplier, and even with average lower upper body strength remains within the range most humans can handle, period. Training is necessary for anyone who'd do it and quite honestly training, diet and lifestyle can illustrate the plasticity of the human body pretty hard (it's extremely visible with many hunter gatherer groups)
Sior
Banned
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/icub-archer-robot-can-shoot-precision-guided-arrows-26-09-201/
It only takes a robot 8 tries to lean to use a bow! LOL
It only takes a robot 8 tries to lean to use a bow! LOL
A 75 pound bow is piddly by battlefield standards, and still requires extensive training to prevent self-injury and to instill coordination and discipline. At 100 yards, it's pitiful in terms of penetration AND accuracy, and, as a result, is not lethal at all. Comparatively, an arquebus is lethal to even armored horsemen at 200 yards away, and can be fired quite accurately at 100 yards (though, as always, individual tests are always a far cry from actual battlefield conditions, where one can realistically expect far more mediocre results. That, and volley fire will reduce accuracy). Comparatively, a 75 pound bow cannot be expected to penetrate any kind of armor.
Throughout all of history, people have been using bows. But only cultures which have specialized it and dedicated themselves to using it (the English and the 150 lb longbow, for example) have been able to turn it into something moderately decisive, instead of leaving it a nuisance. Armor and all; not to mention shields.
And no one is going to do 10 to 15 arrows a minute in battlefield conditions. Not even the most experienced archers can pull that off over a prolonged period of time, ESPECIALLY not with heavy bows (which are the only ones which you can expect adequate lethality). There is a tremendous difference between a 25-30 pound bow and a 75 pound bow.
There is a very good reason why the bow was dumped for the gun like it was going out of fashion, except in those countries which had a strong bowmanship tradition, and had decent bowmen that could actually be expected to kill things on a battlefield. And even then, the English ditched the bow as soon as they had a reliable source of gunpowder (which was the only real reason why the longbow was kept for a time even after everyone else switched to the arquebus).
A good discussion? On the internet?