WI: Mongol carabiniers

A documentary I watched once said that, at the time of the battle of Waterloo, the average musketman had a:
1 in 3 chance of hitting a man-sized target at 50m
1 in 30 chance of hitting a man-sized target at 100m.

The Mongols could do much better than those odds, so they would stick with the bow. However, if they have gunpowder technology then they might end up developing stuff like grenades, which can be thrown from horseback easily enough (or left behind when you fake a retreat), and those would have an enormous shock value ("Jesus, are those Mongol horse people carrying balls of fire?!").

- BNC
 
Well I have linked to this blog which has made a strenuous effort to actually concentrate on contemporary account of the use of bows and firearms in the early gunpowder era before in this thread but in the desperate hope that people might actually go read them I will link Bow Vs Musket once again

In particular of course are incidents from actual wars such as Korea in the1590s found here starting with a critique of staunch Elizabethan bow advocate John Smythe's account of Kett's Rebellion using other contemporary sources or you can look at the debate in England in the early gunpowder period via the sources collected here.

I would raise the point that an awful lot of contemporaries would have taken issue with the claim the longbow was more accurate than firearms of the period. Indeed lack of combat range seems to have been considered the main strike against the bow...though...if you look into the lethality issue which is also addressed in the blog then it may have become conflated.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Indeed lack of combat range seems to have been considered the main strike against the bow...
This is the thing which confuses me. You of course know in particular my looks into the terribly poor accuracy of many muskets pre-rifle period (and indeed into the poor accuracy of rifles without proper training!) and that in many cases you have troops taking very little effective fire inside fifty yards with 1850s era muskets.

With that in mind, this:
Although it was [partly] due to there having been a century of peace and the people not being familiar with warfare that this happened, it was really because the Japanese had the use of muskets that could reach beyond several hundred paces, that always pierced what they struck, that came like the wind and the hail, and with which bows and arrows could not compare.
seems very odd to me. It sounds as though the Japanese in this bows-v-muskets case are using muskets with an accuracy at range which seems incredible, unless that is the muskets in question are very inaccurate but are simply able to remain deadly out several hundred feet.
Though, in turn, if this is the case it seems as if we should see much more of muskets being used at a long range (for volley) in the Napoleonic era than we actually see in reality.

Perhaps the possibility is that the relation between the weapons was as follows:



A musket ball can reach out 300 yards or so and still be deadly if it hits.
An individual (smoothbore) musket is doing area fire out past 50-80 yards.
Large groups of (veteran) musketeers doing area fire are able to score some hits at a range bows are not deadly, compelling a retreat.
This form of combat is inside the effective range of cannister, so was not viable in the Napoleonic context.
This form of combat requires good range estimation, something that requires training.
Muskets can be fired straight off the march, unlike bows.
If a formation uses long range area musket fire against an enemy that is reserving their fire for aimed musket fire, the result is that they inflict comparatively few casualties and pump out a lot of smoke.
The fire and smoke of the muskets has a morale effect much greater than that of the bow.
The bow generally is not deadly except in a comparatively short range or against an unarmoured target (or both), but is accurate out past the range it is generally deadly.
 
Perhaps the possibility is that the relation between the weapons was as follows:



A musket ball can reach out 300 yards or so and still be deadly if it hits.
An individual (smoothbore) musket is doing area fire out past 50-80 yards.
Large groups of (veteran) musketeers doing area fire are able to score some hits at a range bows are not deadly, compelling a retreat.
This form of combat is inside the effective range of cannister, so was not viable in the Napoleonic context.
This form of combat requires good range estimation, something that requires training.
Muskets can be fired straight off the march, unlike bows.
If a formation uses long range area musket fire against an enemy that is reserving their fire for aimed musket fire, the result is that they inflict comparatively few casualties and pump out a lot of smoke.
The fire and smoke of the muskets has a morale effect much greater than that of the bow.
The bow generally is not deadly except in a comparatively short range or against an unarmoured target (or both), but is accurate out past the range it is generally deadly.

I think a lot of that makes sense to me. As far as I am aware a thirteen bore musket ball fired on the service load remained deadly out to about six hundred yards however if one hit you under combat conditions at that distance you'd probably start to wonder which deity you'd offended. I think in terms of psychology the sheer disparity in stopping power of the musket but also the arquebus, caliver and later carbine is often underestimated by modern commentators. If you think about the ongoing debate regarding the stopping power of 5.56mm versus 7.62mm rifle cartridges then perhaps it starts to make more sense. Arrows could of course be lethal but it would appear from the records their stopping power in other than lethal hits was low. Firearms tended to make sure people who'd been hit by them knew about it.
 
..... bow is deadly ..... short range or against an unarmoured target (or both), but is accurate out past the range it is generally deadly.[/QUOTE]
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That is the key!
Bows are best against (un armoured) light infantry and light cavalry.
If you want Mongols to adopt guns, equip their opponents with more fortifications and more plate armour.
 
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