Got a Real-World Weapon or Armor Question? Mk. VI

[Mike_G]

The 'lack of training' is another BIG myth. Crossbows were not weapons given to raw levies. Crossbowmen were highly paid specialists, often imported from far away. Genoa made a fortune exporting mercenaries across Europe and into the Middle East.

Nobody's saying there weren't veteran, well trained crossbowmen. We're saying that it takes years of practice to get good with a longbow, and less time to get good with a crossbow. The examination of the remains of the archers on the Mary Rose show the strain of years of stress placed on their bodies by that practice. It also requires a strong, well fed man to shoot a longbow. A hungry, tired crossbowman can still sight down the shaft and pull the lever.

Crossbows were expensive, much more expensive than longbows. In fact a cranequin (the most expensive spanning device for the strongest bows) alone was more expensive than a longbow.

A musket was probably more expensive than a longbow, and required smithing and moving parts and so on. The point is that it's easier to learn, since the technology supplies the strength and accuracy for you, rather than years of practice.

On crossbows vs. longbows. We all know of the famous battles where the longbow defeated the crossbow; Crecy, Agincourt, Poitiers. But these were all three cases where the French aristocracy threw caution, wisdom, and strategy to the wind. The genoese crossbowmen were positioned as an afterthought, in the worst possible locations, and used in adverse weather. In other encounters, such as between the Swiss and the Burgundians, the longbow did not fare as well.

Would you mind citing a battle or two? I trolled the net, and apart from the Battle of Morat, where the longbows were hastily deployed in defesne of the camp and caught by surprise, I can't find any mention of crossbows defeating longbows. Certainly no mention of a longbow/crossbow shootout.

I'm not denying it happened, but I've never heard of it. The loss of the archers at Morat seems no different from the losses in the Hundred Years War where archers were overrun before they could set up stakes.

Saying a crossbow is better than a longbow or vise versa is a bit like saying a machine gun is better than a mortar. The fact is both remain in wide use by modern militaries, because they have different roles.

Of course there were crossbows and crossbows. They ranged from light weapons which could be used by anybody, to very strong weapons which were dangerous to play with unless you knew what you were doing.

In fact, one of the main reasons we don't know for sure about crossbows is that almost nobody can make replicas of the real military grade types from the Renaissance. There are only a handful of people around the world today who can make a 1200 lb draw prod. There aren't many of them floating around, and the antiques are too dangerous (and expensive) to play with. So nobody is really sure yet how these things perform, though I suspect we will find out in the near future because some folks have made some replicas in the 800 lbs range and are starting to do some preliminary tests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdPyohqe7d0

On the longbow vs. armor thing. What you typically see are videos in which a super powerful 130 lb longbow is tried at ten feet against a 1.5mm thick munitions grade iron breastplate, which 'proves' longbows could pierce armor, then another video where an 80 lb longbow is shot at a 3mm thick tempered steel breastplate from 30 feet and the arrows all bounce of or shatter. Thus "proving" longbows couldn't pierce plate armor. Few people who do these tests really want to know the reality, and they generally serve to further muddy the waters. Hence the debate rages on into infinity, like so all our political debates....

G.

I'm not arguing against the crossbow as a military weapon, and I more or less agree on its strengths, but I think the myth of armor piercing crossbows is as cliched and unrealistic as that of the invincible longbow.

In my own limited experience, it takes a good deal of practice to use a bow with anything like consistent accuracy, and you get tired quickly shooting a heavy bow. The crossbows I've used have been easy to get used to, very consistent, but slower to load.

I make no claim to being an expert with anything that doesn't eject brass when you shoot it, but I can see how one could extrapolate the relative strengths and weaknesses of each, and I stand by my statement that I'd pick a crossbow for the new recruit, but pick a ten year longbow veteran over a similarly seasoned crossbowman.