Crossbows vs. Longbows

[JimMorrison]

I still say that machineguns are superior to longbow, despite the victories of the English.

[Dragar]

Seeing as the longbow/crossbow discussion is petering out, surely its time for someone to bring up the old katana vs western sword chestnut?

[MachingunJoeTurbo]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

I agree with some of the points you made, but you look like a troll and speak like a troll. Even if it wasn't your intention, your opinion goes against everyone else, you can't give direct links to any sources and you haven't even bothered to try out the demo of the game whose mechanics you are debating. Not to mention that you only registered to take part in this discussion. Unfortunately my junior English dictionary (with pictures!) didn't have the definition of a troll, I'm forced to call you "an internet person who cannot agree with anyone else on anything" instead.

Well looking at Thilock Dominus' list I can see how I fit parts of certain profiles, Contrarion and Agenda, made me blush a bit. But I have not done any different than any other poster sharing what they know. I did not notice many dropping down the hardcore literary works and I don't have a problem with that but I don't feel that what I have been saying has been that alien. I think part of the problem is that some of you take section of things you've heard about their battles that have been...romanced up and you make inferences about mechanics. I'm taking what non-expert knowledge I have about bow mechanics and combining them with the same non-expert knowledge on somewhat lesser known battles. I played the demo a long while ago. I don't know if it has changed but the one I had was limited to the early age and I did not see an active faction with the whole breadth of weapons. I read about crossbows shooting in the back from an AAR about the faction who develops into a "cave blind society" I don't remember the name. It was when the forums were a light brown color. I had forgotten about this game, distracted with school and remembered it when I saw it on Somethingawful.

Plus some of the things I thought should have been easy to look up. Take what I said about arrows and the devices that modern times have come up to help us with them. Take a look at this archery site that explains how to adjust the plunger button and "tune" your arrows.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar...oliviritys.htm

Look at the little diagram. Remember where I said the arrow was against the bow? See how the arrow is wiggling on its node points? Look at all the complicated steps you need to take to make sure it's a good arrow and then adjusting the plunger. Doing the test again with and without fletchings. See the grouping. I think the site mentions that's at a mere 7 seven meters. That distance becomes even more awful at "need to kill a man range." And this is WITH a modern bow. WITH modern arrows. WITH high-tech materials And WITH devices like a plunger to make you sure you get it right.

Now go back and look at medieval times. How could they know even a smidgen of what we know now? Imagine the quality control with the need to crank out all those arrows. Would they all test them like that? Did they even have the tools to do so? Even if they could would they?

And that's just the weapon itself. Look at what must be done with actually shooting it.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar.../tekniikka.htm

Look at the steps. The need to stand in the proper posture. The need to hold the bow correctly. Here's a sentence in the very beginning that stands out.

"
The shooting with a bow consists of an unbreakable chain of different operational acts which are executed million and again million times the same way."

That sounds familiar...

Look at the anchor. I forgot completely about the need to maintain vertical sameness much less the same draw distance. Look at how utterly minuscule the differences is to mess up your sighting and your aiming.

Now imagine trying to do all of this while someone is trying to kill you. It makes more sense to me to consider longbowmen as still "men" and not stone cold archery robots. Which is what you'd have to be to do this the "same way" especially in combat. This is why I inwardly groan when people talk about their "training." Longbowmen practicing on Sunday does not turn them into those robots anymore than me shooting cans off the fence (on Sunday) makes me into John Rambo. In real combat I would shoot much worse and my pants would be filled with a not insignificant amount of poo.

Why could a crossbowman carry more ammo than a longbowman? Wouldn't the bolts' fletching be ruined about as easily?

Several reasons. One they tend to be more compact and so they can easier be reached from multiple packs on your person. Charles VIII of Sweden's xbowmen had something around 7 dozen of these quarrels this way. I believe archers of all kinds tend to wear their ammo on a hip. A longbow arrow is...well long and trying to extend you arm way up to pull it from it's quiver from many angles is going to be...very awkward compared to a quarrel. Also some bolts depending on their usage did not bother with fletchings at all. An arrow without fletchings will behave much much worse compared to a quarrel without one. Quarrels are also therefore are more tolerant of different materials. Since the projectile sits on a tiller the fletchings aren't going to contact the bow in the same way an arrow would and could therefore use much stronger and stiffer materials.

I've found few mentions of crossbows not being able to arc (e.g. in Final Fantasy Tactics: bows can arc, crossbows/guns can't), and about Chinese using line-fighting with crossbows. So your crossbow facts seem to be all right. Unfortunately, it's hard to find longbow facts that someone who doesn't believe the common knowledge would accept as a fact. I'd have to find someone who doubted longbow's usefulness, researched, and changed his mind.

Well the internet absorbed so much pro-longbow stuff since the usenet days it's difficult to find. When I tried to scrounge up something on the battles I mentioned I found this blog.

http://wapenshaw.wordpress.com/2008/...bow-the-final/

He mentions Constance (which I mentioned a while back) here as well as Nogent . But do an experiment. Look up Mauron which is mentioned but ultimately an English success. It comes up easy. Try looking up the Battle of Nogent and Constance. Notice it's not so easy. That's not a coincidence. He also tears Robert Hardy a new one who I dislike as well for those two reasons and more. Look at some of the things you've been digging up on longbows on the net. You'll see his name A LOT. I know many of you cry shock and horror about my insinuations of "longbow fanboyism" but the bias on the Internets is quite real.

Originally Posted by Agema

Er, do you have a problem with the English or British?

Firstly, you seem determined to not just deny any credit to them for use of the longbow, but to make out they were cheap, and only won battles because the French were incompetent.

Now you're making bizarre accusations that they repeatedly get "stuck" using old and inefficient technologies and practices. On what grounds would you argue they were any worse than any other race nation? How do you explain they were and still are near the front of technological advancement since about 1700?

No, I mentioned them kicking butt at Assaye did I not? The longbow isn't "theirs" because it's everywhere. The longbow literally sat next them the whole time in Wales. To suspect that they just noticed this "awesome" weapon very LATE to the party is much more of an insult to them. When the French were competent and focused they won handily. When they weren't they lost.

England falls into those traps like other nations do. China is the biggest example. They get set in their ways and caught in a loop. Making the longbow edict turned it into a part of their culture. They were as reluctant to leave it regardless of merit. It is simply something that has happened before. That is all.

The wiki article is very ...misleading to put it lightly. I might use "wrong" but certain individuals can get prickly with that word. It seems to mention modern average bow weight plus the key sentence there is suitable for hunting. "Bows for warfare tend to be much more powerful" and then it mentions two examples. Longbows were not ahead of the curve in any capacity.

@Incabulos:

Porters would have slowed down the overall process. And again the crossbow is a much more cohesive weapon. Focusing on the front ranks of a charge would hamper/trip other horseman. Jan Zizka fended off charges with crossbows all the time and never lost a battle. French scouts which meant that their horses would not be piled up with armor stomped the longbowmen at Patay.

@Lingchih:

I haven't gotten the game yet. When I come into some money I'm sure you will stomp a mudhole in me regardless of weapon as I will be quite the n00b.

@Endoperez:
Sounds like marignon is clearly the superior faction.

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by Dragar

Seeing as the longbow/crossbow discussion is petering out, surely its time for someone to bring up the old katana vs western sword chestnut?

I'm in as soon as we get into the Alien vs Predator one

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by MachingunJoeTurbo

I played the demo a long while ago. I don't know if it has changed but the one I had was limited to the early age and I did not see an active faction with the whole breadth of weapons. I read about crossbows shooting in the back from an AAR about the faction who develops into a "cave blind society" I don't remember the name. It was when the forums were a light brown color. I had forgotten about this game, distracted with school and remembered it when I saw it on Somethingawful.

Early Age doesn't have any crossbows, I think. If any nation has them, it'd be Tien Chi, the "chinese" faction. Longbows are also pretty rare in EA, although I think one of the demo nations (Kailasa, inspired by India) has them.

The "shooting in the back" happens when the enemy forces run away and your own units try to catch up with them. Imagine 60 crossbows aiming at the three retreating militias from halfway across the battlefield, and wounding or even killing several of your own infantry who had almost caught up with them.

It can also happen with bows, of course.

[rdonj]

That was a pretty good post MachinGun, informative and calm, this is a post I can appreciate

Well looking at Thilock Dominus' list I can see how I fit parts of certain profiles, Contrarion and Agenda, made me blush a bit. But I have not done any different than any other poster sharing what they know. I did not notice many dropping down the hardcore literary works and I don't have a problem with that but I don't feel that what I have been saying has been that alien. I think part of the problem is that some of you take section of things you've heard about their battles that have been...romanced up and you make inferences about mechanics. I'm taking what non-expert knowledge I have about bow mechanics and combining them with the same non-expert knowledge on somewhat lesser known battles. I played the demo a long while ago. I don't know if it has changed but the one I had was limited to the early age and I did not see an active faction with the whole breadth of weapons. I read about crossbows shooting in the back from an AAR about the faction who develops into a "cave blind society" I don't remember the name. It was when the forums were a light brown color. I had forgotten about this game, distracted with school and remembered it when I saw it on Somethingawful.

I don't know where you were reading that, but you are most certainly talking about Agartha. I don't remember for sure when they get crossbows, but I think they have them in all ages other than early. You missed all the crossbows, as they do not appear at all in the early age. There are a select few who do get them in MA though. I'm pretty sure no nation gets a full selection from all the different types of ranged weapons in one era. For example MA or LA T'ien Ch'i gets Composite Bows and Crossbows, whereas for example LA Man gets Longbows and Crossbows. In EA most nations have only shortbows, slings and javelins, while T'ien Ch'i for example always has crossbows. In case you'd be interested in a rundown, human nations rate their weapons from slings to short bows, then composite bows, then longbows, then crossbows. There is also a heavy crossbow that does a bit more damage but fires slower. And to more directly address what you were talking about, the poster was probably referring to Agarthans poor eyesight causing them to take a lot of friendly fire. Archery tends to cause a lot of friendly fire in Dominions, and Agarthans are even worse because they have low precision. Every ranged weapon is capable of shooting over other units though.

Plus some of the things I thought should have been easy to look up. Take what I said about arrows and the devices that modern times have come up to help us with them. Take a look at this archery site that explains how to adjust the plunger button and "tune" your arrows.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar...oliviritys.htm

Look at the little diagram. Remember where I said the arrow was against the bow? See how the arrow is wiggling on its node points? Look at all the complicated steps you need to take to make sure it's a good arrow and then adjusting the plunger. Doing the test again with and without fletchings. See the grouping. I think the site mentions that's at a mere 7 seven meters. That distance becomes even more awful at "need to kill a man range." And this is WITH a modern bow. WITH modern arrows. WITH high-tech materials And WITH devices like a plunger to make you sure you get it right.

Okay, that site you linked made my brain bleed, I'm sorry. I just could not force myself to read through it, it was too painful. I do want to say though that I've done a bit of amateur archery, and it isn't nearly as complicated as that is making it out to be to hit a target with a modern compound bow. Within a week I was able to hit a standard archery target reliably from 20-30 yards. And I should add that that wasn't even with all of the modern equipment like stabilizers and easy release triggers. These people are trying to make your shots perfect, for very serious archers trying to be as accurate as possible. That certainly isn't me, I could never take something that seriously .

In a way, I think being trained on a medieval bow would be better for the archer than being trained on a modern one. The reason being, with a modern bow, your accuracy depends on the accuracy of your instruments. Sights, stabilizer, etc. With an unadorned bow, your accuracy relies on YOU, and should be a lot less fiddly. Plus it will teach you more. You'll spend more time watching the environment around you, learning how to adjust for wind etc. If you're a good judge of distance, once you've got the basics down it shouldn't be too hard to adjust to range to a reasonable degree.

Now go back and look at medieval times. How could they know even a smidgen of what we know now? Imagine the quality control with the need to crank out all those arrows. Would they all test them like that? Did they even have the tools to do so? Even if they could would they?

I think they would do a certain degree of testing. Obviously they didn't know as much as we do now, but they knew some of it, possibly even a good deal of it. Or at least understood enough to figure out ways to improve their accuracy. Someone serious about their skill, like a real soldier, would certainly have put in a lot of time and effort improving their marskmanship.

And that's just the weapon itself. Look at what must be done with actually shooting it.

http://handbook.jousiammuntaseura-ar.../tekniikka.htm

Look at the steps. The need to stand in the proper posture. The need to hold the bow correctly. Here's a sentence in the very beginning that stands out...

Actually, it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. It's like riding a bike, playing a sport, learning how to drive... it will take you a while to master it, but once you have it just comes naturally. Have you ever fired a gun? It's pretty similar. If you don't stand correctly, if you aren't holding the gun right, if you pull the trigger poorly, all of those can muck up your accuracy. And like with a gun, getting any part of your actions wrong will reduce your accuracy, but you can be reasonably accurate even doing so. Now, I'm not specifically going to talk about the skill level of the average english longbowman, since I am the first to admit I know absolutely nothing about what their training regimen might look like or how well disciplined they might be. But with regular practice and some combat experience, I would expect a competent archer to be able to hit their mark the reasonable majority of the time. Not perfectly except at reasonably close distance, but perfection isn't completely needed on the battlefield either, that's more for tournaments.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Early Age doesn't have any crossbows, I think. If any nation has them, it'd be Tien Chi, the "chinese" faction. Longbows are also pretty rare in EA, although I think one of the demo nations (Kailasa, inspired by India) has them.

The "shooting in the back" happens when the enemy forces run away and your own units try to catch up with them. Imagine 60 crossbows aiming at the three retreating militias from halfway across the battlefield, and wounding or even killing several of your own infantry who had almost caught up with them.

It can also happen with bows, of course.

I don't think T'ien Ch'i has crossbows in the early age, however their composite bows are superb for the ea setting. And yeah, kailasa does have longbows on the bandar archers.

I guess you can ignore what I said about shooting in the back, that does happen and at times I've lost more troops to my own archery as the enemy force retreated than to their infantry.

[Sombre]

It has nothing to do with 'shooting in the back' though. It's just that at range missiles weapons are no longer accurate and projectiles are much more likely to hit your own troops and irritate you when there are like 3 enemy soldiers running away and your army of 300 is hot on their heels.

[chrispedersen]

the length of the post does nothing to change the fact that you have been simply *wrong* on many points. The first being that the strength of the pull does affect the range fired.

The second being that while you can find exceptions(such as repeating crossbows), that the rate of fire of longbows *is* much greater than crossbows. So much so that that crossbows were fired and reloaded in ranks.

Generally, a nation that puts the most effective fighting force on the field at the cheapest cost wins. Of course there are all kinds of exceptions. But crossbows allowed a very cheap unit to kill very expensive units.

I'm guessing at the numbers - but crossbows were 80% as effective at 20% of the cost. With the primary cost here for longbowmen being a restricted pool of conscripts caused by the lengthy training time, and the difficulty in churning out bows.

[Kamamura]

One quick note - longbows, unlike crossbows, were used as an indirect fire weapon in battle (firing in high arc, the arrows coming from above). As such, it was much more difficult to take cover from them.

On the other hand, crossbow bolts from heavy crossbows were fired with terrible force - contemporary sources say they could pierce an armored knight altogether. The fact that the Pope issued a bula forbidding Christians to use crossbows against each other only prove, how feared weapon it was.

I think the composition of troops was also mainly determined by regional tradition - in England, archery had long tradition and therefore the populace supplied large numbers of bowmen. In real life, you cannot just "build" archers for money as in most games. The only game I know that reflect this is Crusader Kings - your nobles bring their subject to fight, and the troop composition depends on the social classes and terrain of the province, and you as a king can't influence it.