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I was just wondering about the archery styles and the bows of the various nations of the ancient world and which were the best or most useful.

Discuss.

Guns are better. Longbow men where individually superior at least till the introduction of rifled muskets, but you can't raise an army of them in eight weeks and disband it when no longer needed. Bowmen require steady work for years to be practical.

Now If I was a King/Duke/Lord that wouldn't be an issue and I suspect no one else here would be much bothered by it but in reality it was exactly why the bow was abandon so quickly.

why were the muskets so much better? didnt they take an awfully long time to reload?

Then of course you have crossbows; I don't know much about medieval weaponry so I'm not sure how heavily they were used.

Though in one of my favorite movies Ladyhawke (screw you if you've never heard of it, or you think its crap, it's mad and you SUCK ... ahem) crossbows were quite prolific

Rutger Hauer rules.

Sorry that's extremely off-topic.

But yeah ... crossbows.

Anyone remember when Mad Martigan in Willow did the double crossbow thing? What was Ron Howard/George Lucas watching some Hong Kong action? (screw you if you don't like Willow, its mad and you SUCK)

ahem.

Mad Martigan rules.

But yeah ... crossbows.

salm wrote:why were the muskets so much better? didnt they take an awfully long time to reload?

Training time- economics. Archers worth a damn require a lot more training than some tool with a musket.

Training time- economics. Archers worth a damn require a lot more training than some tool with a musket.

ah, ok. so could you say that a properly trained long bower is more effective than a properly trained musketeer?

salm wrote:

Training time- economics. Archers worth a damn require a lot more training than some tool with a musket.

ah, ok. so could you say that a properly trained long bower is more effective than a properly trained musketeer?

Yes- up until the development of rifled muskets, which Sea Skimmer pointed out.

Muskets have been around for ages remember- you take say a Civil War musket and compare it to an old piece of shit from like the 1700s ... huge difference.

salm wrote:why were the muskets so much better? didnt they take an awfully long time to reload?

Guns are better because they're massively cheaper. As I said, individually a longbow is much better, but 500 longbow men wont beat 5000 men with muskets. The two armies would have cost the same; actually the musket men would likely be somewhat cheaper.

A Good archer needed to train hard for years to be worth having on the battlefield, and to commit his time to that he needed a steady supply of work IE War to sustain himself. A good musket man could be trained in two months and when the war was over he could be fired, the weapon stored and a new man hired and trained for the new war.

Yes, though Even though "Accurasy" and "Musket" genrealy don't belong togther in the same sentace

Muskets also had superior armor piercing capabilities, they ended the age of the knights, at the beginning of the 16th century Europe's battlefields were still full of knights and at the end of the 16th century heavy cavalry had become a much less significant factor.

Muskets have been around for ages remember- you take say a Civil War musket and compare it to an old piece of shit from like the 1700s ... huge difference.

Hey no musket-bashing here those things are fucking cool especially the matchlock ones, though not accurate and not reliable (and if you fire one your shoulder will hurt).

[quote="Cpt_Frank"]Muskets also had superior armor piercing capabilities, they ended the age of the knights, at the beginning of the 16th century Europe's battlefields were still full of knights and at the end of the 16th century heavy cavalry had become a much less significant factor. [/img]

Perhapes, though a rain of arrows from Longbows was quite lethal to knights and there mounts and at greater range. Though other bows where not as effective.

What really made muskets effective was the introduction of bayonets. That removed then need for a swarm of pikemen to protect the slow firing musket men from being overrun, something which archers also required.

Also if it was raining that would fuck up a musket pretty quick.
The powder in the musket would be ruined.

Or the matches wouldn't burn properly.

Automatic crossbows.

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Automatic crossbows.

I like.

Mr Bean wrote:Yes, though Even though "Accurasy" and "Musket" genrealy don't belong togther in the same sentace

The innacuracy of the musket caused soldiers to form lines, so that when an opposing soldier fired, they were guaranteed to kill at least one soldier.

There is a name for bravery in battle: Stupidity


On the subject, I'm not really into archery, but what about that poison-arrow frog's poison on an arrow? Don't some primitive tribes use those?