Let's Get It Right: Longbow vs Crossbow - A Video Essay
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- Опубліковано 24 чер 2023
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Everyone has a strong opinion on whether the longbow or the crossbow was the better ranged weapon in the middle ages. There are speculative but nonetheless common claims like: “the longbow was the machine gun of the middle ages and the crossbow was the sniper rifle”. History buffs, testers and historians can get into heated debates about armor penetration, rate of fire and tactical application of these weapons. Certain aspects like rate of fire or penetration power can be tested experimentally, as has been done, for example, by fellow UA-camr Tod from Tod’s Workshop , but testing has limits: after all, tests are not battles. Also, the interpretation of such tests often leads to logical fallacies - for example: a better rate of fire doesn’t necessarily imply a more effective weapon in battle. In the same vein traditional historiography runs into problems because they often ignore the tactical implications of practical tests. A proper comparison of the two weapons needs to consider both practical tests and historiography. So, in this video we’d like to shed some light on the main arguments of the debate. We‘ll bring together testing and research and - maybe - get a baby step closer to understanding these two weapons and their roles in medieval warfare.
#history #documentary #education
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Ambrose, S. E., Band of Brothers: E Company, 2001. amzn.to/438ltvZ
Baime, A. J., The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman, 2017. amzn.to/3TcDGUj
Beard, M., Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, 2023. amzn.to/49L2olR
Bevoor, A., Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943, 1999. amzn.to/4a4rqwe
Beevor, A., The Second World War, 2013. amzn.to/3wNFITu
Brennan, P+D., Gettysburg in Color, 2022. amzn.to/48LGldG
Clausewitz, C., On War, 2010. amzn.to/3Vblf5
Kaushik, R., A Global History of Pre-Modern Warfare: 10,000 BCE-1500 CE, 2021. amzn.to/49Mtqt7
McPherson, J., Battle Cry of Freedom, The Civil War Era, 2021. amzn.to/3TseYAW
Tsu, S., The Art of War, 2007, amzn.to/3TuknHA
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Pomerantsev, P., How to Win an Information War, 2024. amzn.to/3Ts0YqQ
Bibliography
Bradbury, Jim, The Medieval Archer, Woodbrige 1985.
DeVries, Kelly, “Catapults Are Not Atomic Bombs: Towards a Redefinition of 'Effectiveness' in Premodern Military Technology”, in: War in History 4, No. 4 (November 1997), pp. 454-470.
Devries, K., Medieval Military Technology, 1994.
Green, David, The Hundred Year's War: A People's History, Padstow 2014.
Payne-Gallwey, Ralph, The Crossbow: Its Military and Sporting History, Construction and Use, London 1903.
Prestwich, Michael, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience, (1996, repr. Hong Kong, 2006.
Rogers, Clifford J., Tactics and the Face of Battle, in: Tallet, Frank/Trim, D. J. B. (Ed.), European Warfare 1350-1750, Cambridge 2010.
Rogers, Clifford J., The Efficacy of the English Longbow, 1998.
Strickland, Matthew and Hardy, Robert, The Great Warbow, Stroud 2005.
Soar, H., Gibbs, J., Jury, C., Stretton, M., Secrets of the English War Bow. Westholme, 2010, pp. 127-151.
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EDIT: Uhh, the math at 09:05 is wrong -> 360/hour
09:08 6 arrows per minute = 360 arrows per hour
*TITLE BREAKDOWN*
_"Let's get it right"_ Added 0 information. Made it twice as long as necessary.
_"Longbow vs Crossbow:"_ Concise and descriptive.
_"A Video Essay:"_ A hyperconcentration of cringe so dense, it caused Charm anti-particles and Tau particles (the notoriosly cringe particles) to fuse together in the creation of new fundamental particles of pure cringe.
2/5 stars - informed but dissappointed.
I think the argument you made about crossbows being able to double their rate of fire is somewhat deluding, if you have 2 people firing a weapon instead of 1 of course you will double the rate of fire, you could also have 2 bowmen doing the same, I don‘t understand how this is significant…
there's only one good vehicle in war thunder, the italian L3/33
Eh, the devs ruined it for years, really doubt the devs will fix anything
Won't be long until a Bannerlord or Mordhau player leaks classified information to prove his point in this debate.
Strat gaming... Get on it
The Vatican leaks...
"Kill archers they're all gay" - Mordhau player
Internal security of the Duchy of Burgundy is severely compromised
I never know which one to use in bannerlord. Or what to upgrade my troops to.
_But they were all deceived... for another handheld ranged weapon was made..._
In the Land of Italy, in the fires of Florence, the dark alchemists forged in secret a master weapon, to replace all others. And into this weapon they poured their cruelty, their malice and will to dominate all battles. „One weapon to rule them all.“ One by one the ranged weapons of the army of Europe fell to the power of the gun.
Goat comment
Be it a crossbow or a longbow, both pale against the efectiveness of a single Frenchman swearing to you from the top of a castle wall.
"Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time."
"You father was a hamster, and your mother smells like elderberry!!!"
"Sire, I have a plan . . . run away, run away! "
The secret of British attack doctrine : always secure your means of retreat and be prepared to use them.
I got a thousand hours of play on Total War Medieval so I am an expert on this subject and I say that Tsar Bomba is a much better weapon than either one
In theory yes, but historically the longbow and crossbow have countless kills while the Tsar Bomba has yet to rack up one.
I have been doing research on this subject for quite a while. Moving on to testing this year. My emphasis has been on the portuguese context, since we do have quite a few sources on various aspects of crossbow employment from a semi-professional corps.
A few points:
1 - as to the power differences, the tests I have seen never take into account the myriad of variations in prod material (this is relevant due to energy loss through inertia), or the possible variation on quarrel characteristics, and other crossbow specifications - far too much standardization is assumed when discussing this problem. If we look at examples from museums alone, we see a lot of variation in design through western Europe alone.
2 - I have never seen considered in a significant degree in mainstream discussion (particularly online), that the crossbow might have offered economic advantages to the longbow. Crossbow manufacture involved more professionals, and was highly specialized. In Portugal, for example, around the Tejo (a river in central Portugal), we have references of at least 5 different professionals involved in crossbow production, and delivery to a private subject or troop. Prods, tillers, ticklers, strings, irons, quarrels and fletching, among other things, were mostly a specialised separate production which would later require assembly, testing, and tuning. This can kickstart local economies, produce basis for export (which happened in Flanders), promote trade, and provide the Crown, increasingly more concerned with standardization, with an economic and proto-industrial base of supply for its host. The 1471 expeditions to North Africa illustrate that.
3 - regarding training, we have a lot more insight as to the training of portuguese crossbowmen than we do of english longbowmen, for example. It is not surprising these sources are unknown, or ignored, due to language differences, but they exist. Recently, there have been two, maybe three, historians focusing on the problem and none of them has work published in English. If you would like me to provide you a translation of the seminal phd thesis on the subject I can @SandRhomanHistory ; In sum, however, training was extensive, and carried out every week, great legal pains were taken to ensure the coordination at local level, and the maintenance of equipment, training standards, and muster; tax privileges were complemented with fines for breaking agreements and obligations. We read of bank shooting of 100 quarrels a Sunday, coordination practice, and hunting parties - the latter are especially relevant due to vermin control (eagles), and special hunting privileges.
4 - employment, following from point number 3, is far more varied for crossbowmen in the sources than we see discussed elsewhere. Ambushes, small scale raiding parties, sieges, bodyguard duty, etc., all feature in the sources.
5 - As to the value of the bowman as a soldier, I think we ought to pay close attention to application and ordnances of other countries not France or England, such as Portugal and Spain, and reflect on the fact that the bow was extremely rare, while the crossbow was preferred, and the individual crossbowman was equiped to a higher standard, equipped with javelins, as well shield and sword, and expected to have a very high standard of proficiency. This only stopped when the crossbowman had its privileges revoked in favour of the gunman.
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Context is everything. Not mentioned is that English longbows liked to fight from behind an obstacle - pits at Crecy, stakes at Agincourt - which was part and parcel of their harrassing role in goading an enemy to attack at a disadvantage. At Patay, a battle not generally discussed in English histories, longbowmen were caught before they could emplace stakes and were badly beaten.
I feel like there are two key issues that plague this debate.
1. We are pitting one specific weapon, the longbow, against an entire category of weapons, crossbows. Crossbows came in many different shapes and sizes as pointed out and those were suited for different niches. You can't just lump all crossbows together just like you can't lump all spears together. To get better answers you should probably compare more specific crossbows with longbows in order to narrow down the comparison.
2. A tendency to assume pre-modern combat followed similar rules to modern combat. Focusing too much on technical specifications is generally emblematic of a fairly modern understanding of technology, it makes sense in a world with standardized mass production where these things are consistent and can be quantified with tests (though even when talking about modern combat people over focus on it often). But generally in pre-modern it makes much more sense to think about the role a weapon plays as is pointed out and especially it's morale effect. Pre-modern battles were very often determined by morale so the literal physical impact of a weapon isn't as important as the effect it can have on the cohesion and morale of an enemy, not in that it was literally scary necessarily but often in it's ability to break up formations or tire the enemy. If we look at some other famous bows like the compound bows used by many steppe nomads it in itself was inferior in many technical aspects to longbows or crossbows but it was part of the tactics many steppe nomads used which were often successful because they were able to tire less mobile enemies and make them rout.
there many different types of long bow tho
I disagree with your point #2. Just where do you draw the line between "modern", "early modern", and "pre-modern"? For example, the Aztec empire was in the Stone Age but had a very centralized government over millions of people and a HUGE military-industrial complex to gin out standardized obsidian blades and points by the millions for both domestic and military use. They had the bow but that was relegated to peasant levees. The nobility, who wore armor, preferred the atlatl dart, which had rather greater penetrating power than the short self bows of the peasants, and which were only really good against the opposing peasants.
Does your passion for history help to distract you from the fact that you will never be a woman?
Something I noticed is that some info on the use each weapon had can be found in surnames. As surnames come from professions, you can tell what kind of troops were actual soldiers (and not just levies) in each region by the names they left: for example, in English, you can find family names as Archer and Bowman, while in Spanish and Catalan you have Ballestero and Ballester (i.e. Crossbowman).
This is interesting, but ultimately impossible to draw conclusions from since before the 1600's in places like Iberia the soldiers were part time only. Most of the bowmen were weavers by profession, at least in Portugal, since it was the most well represented profession in the middle classes of emerging burghers with contacts with the English and northern European wool trade market.
The surname are not coming from middle ages, this is relatively modern invention. So at the best it can give you some information on your ancestors three hundred year ago
Three hundred years ago, archers and crossbowmen were no longer commonplace, and hadn't been for almost two centuries
@@boriskapchits7727 Surnames were definitely used in the middle ages, especially by the British. Many men were named after biblical characters and in Britain John was so popular that whole villages had the vast majority of their men named John. To differentiate between the people in court records a surname was given, based on what occupation they had when relevant, such as smith, brewer, carpenter, etc. If they were just run of the mill farmers (millers would have been called miller) then they got a name based on something else, such as a geographic feature they lived near. That is where names such as Atwell or Atwood came from because they lived near, or at, the well or woods.
I am of Irish descent and we can trace our surname, or clan name, back thousands of years to well before the iron age, much less the middle ages.
Am I missing something? 6 arrows a minute doesn't equal 60 arrows an hour. It equals 60 arrows every 10 minutes
No the 6 a minute does not equal 60 and hour…. But at the same time it does not equal 60 arrows in ten minutes either …..
Whether we are talking about slings, bows, or rifles estimating rate of fire over longer periods of time through single step multiplication is not very practical or logical….
Limiting factors not relevant in short periods become exponentially more and more relevant in longer periods…. Endurance of the operator and fatigue and stresses on the weapon as well as ammunition supply…. The leather strap on the sling will break overtime, the bowstring will stretch out , the barrel will overheat….
The shoulder of rhe operators of all these individuals will degrade over time
@@MrSheckstr No but also got to remember a battle was not just one constant melee. They clashed withdrew, then the next wave. WE DO KNOW that the english would gather arrows in between these waves.
The higher rate of fire is certainly important. What makes the difference is not an average rate over few hours of battle, it's the ability to loose arrows at key points of the battle, for example when under charge. If a horseman charges on a formation, arrowmen had rather short time gap to loose the arrows on the charging force, they were in range for a couple of minutes or so. And it is much better to loose ten arrows then three bolts.
Modern soldier can fire 500 round per minute, it does not mean that he carries to battle tons of ammunition, and he does not need to. But still, the ability to fire at this rate is important
true, we could have made that point better. Still, depending on the situation and the tactical use of a weapon, higher rate of fire doesn't necessarily equal better weapon (which is what we tried to argue here).
@@SandRhomanHistory well, to be sure higher rate is an advantage, but you've made it very clear that beyond technical ability of a weapon there is question of tactical use and tradeoffs.
theres nothing so discouraging to a knight as seeing the sky blacken over and over again with endless volleys of death raining down.
one fallen horse can totally kill a charge
cavalry are great but they need support
I like to think that every weapon is situational and not a direct upgrade to each other. By sticking to weapon classes in the same or similar eras, they are more side grades to each other. While there may be better alternatives to some, there isn't a hard and fast, overall inferior weapon unless purposely taken out of context.
well said.
"Superior" weapon design will eventually supersede the inferior design, like nobody would disagree that modern 20th century .308 rifle with is superior to 18th century smoothbore musket.
In case of longbow, the English, during the Crusades (e.g. under Richard the Lionhearted) use crossbow extensively. But they eventually adopt longbow during the 100 years war as their primary ranged weapon.
This means longbow was in fact *superior* to crossbow in the context of English favored strategy of rapid large scale raiding (chevauchee) during 100 years war.
They deploy a lot of *mounted archers* during these raids, who were foot archers that ride horse to move around (like later Dragoon units). They primarily fight on foot with longbow, but they also shoot from horseback (most likely with smaller bow), as depicted in many contemporary artworks.
Btw, contrary to popular belief, mounted archers were *common* in Medieval Europe.
From England, France, Burgundy, HRE, Eastern Roman Empire, the Rus, the nomadic tribes, all the way to Chinese dynasties, they all use mounted archers and horse archers. These were *NOT* unique to nomadic tribes of Eurasian plain.
There's this Italian treatise c. 1453 which recommends either the English longbow or Turkish composite bow for sappers (among other various recommendations for an army of the time.) Considering both hand cannons and crossbows were well known to the Italians by this point, there are couple reasons I think they chose to recommend the bow for this specific application.
1. Sappers were not primary combatants, certainly not on a battlefield, so armor penetration is not as big a concern. Even then, they would still be at risk during a siege, so they definitely should still be armed somehow.
2. The bow can allow indirect fire, which is more difficult for the crossbow and not an option for the hand cannon. If you are most likely going to be shooting at someone in a fortified position (if at all), then this could be critical to actually targeting them at all.
3. The crossbow would require you to bring a spanning mechanism, and the hand cannon powder and likely a stand or even a second guy to help you hold it. In any case, both are much more cumbersome to transport than the bow, which is worth considering when again combat is not your main job, but more of something you need to prepare for. Especially when sappers should be bringing other equipment for their primary job.
As for why the Turkish bows were considered equally viable despite being more exotic for a European context, they probably performed similarly enough and/or had unique advantages that made them worth using if you could get your hands on them. If I had to make a guess, it'd be the more efficient design allowing less draw weight for the same power, which would be nice for users who are probably not training as hard as military archers. Both would probably be insufficient against a plate armored opponent anyway so I doubt that was a major factor.
gallica.bnf.fr/.../btv1b8478964h/f46.planchecontact
@@perrytran9504there's a lot of contemporary arguments about which weapons were better. Especially in the late 16th century which guns mostly replaced bows by that point. There's many 'military theorists' arguing through their writings wheter longbow were better than muskets. (Spoilers: muskets won)
the interesting part is how similar they are to internet arguments today for example the argument that there aren't any living archers in their time as competent as the one from agincourt so they can't prove their points.
Obviously since neither fully replaced the other over a long period of time, both had their advantages.
I guess most army leaders just used the troops that were affordable and available at their place and time.
@@arnvonsalzburg5033that’s what I’m thinking, if a noble or anyone really, needed men they would go with what’s available
Whether it be crossbowmen or bows
Just because it is not sustainable to fire at maximum cadence does not imply that it is not a huge advantage. When the enemy charges you will probably fire most of the time with maximum cadence to discourage him and inflict maximum damage while he is within range. There is no denying that in those critical moments firing more projectiles is a huge advantage. Of course no one keeps it up for hours but that is not the point.
true. it was not our intention to imply that but to critique the common argument that rate of fire equals better weapon!
@@SandRhomanHistory Which is why we still use the Brown Bess.
@@vanivanov9571 since the very reasons many army were slow to adopt repeating rifles was because their logistics couldn't keep up with the ammunitions new guns would consume and soldiers would quickly empty their ammunition(at least that's what they were afraid of) you kinda proved his point.
Crossbow is even more useful when you have cover than people realize. It comes from most people misunderstanding how a crossbow is shot. Typically you don't hold it as a rifle, but with one hand at the back of the stock, with the other with a overhand grip with a thumb on the nut holding the arrow down - which makes it much easier to just put the weapon over the cover with as little exposure as possible, shoot and hide again. It's why you have pavise crossbowmen and not pavise archers. You'd think an archer would benefit from a pavise just as much on a battlefield, but if you ever shot a longbow, you'd know that having stuff in front of you is a massive headeache and if you hit anything with the limbs, you've probably irreversably destroyed it.
When you are a longbowman on a castle wall, you either have to have space in front of you, which severly limits your ability to shoot at people downwards, and if you wnat to shoot down, you have to get close to the wall, and put your whole bow in front of the wall, becoming a massive target. For the crossbow, if you can rest the styrrup on a surface, you can shoot from there no problem.
Huh! Noted
The math at 9:09 is off, if they fired 6 arrows/minute that's 360 arrows/hour, not 60/hour. So 1.8M arrows per hour for the 5000 archers. Solidifies your point more that they would not be firing at the maximum rate constantly during a battle.
yep, our mistake, didn’t check it while reviewing.
It would take us longer to make a definite answer to this question, than it took for armies to replace both weapons with arquebusses
& then heavily armored Manchu cavalry wielding bows crushed armies of arquebusiers in the 17th century.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 I had not heard of this. Which battles? I want to research that!
@@IntraFinesse The Batle of Sarhu 1619 stands out. Here are some translated quotations from Huangchao Jinshi Wenpian from a Historum thread:
"The thralls (Jurchen) have a lot of Mingguang heavy armor, shorter and smaller arquebuses cannot pierce it. That's why (our) training nowadays should draw the picture of enemy as shooting targets, and focus (the training) on shooting at their hands and eyes. We should also call craftsmen to manufacture "Big Arquebus" (probably musket or jingal) at once, at least 1000 was needed, that can pierce iron armor.
"At the present, the slaves (Jurchens) won and we lost horribly for three reasons...they are armor, equipment, battle horses, which are rough military indicators and we also cannot match them in any...According to the reports of the Koreans, the slave places in the northern passes had iron smiths dwelling there. Their profession is to make armor. I also heard that their iron workers spread out for many li. Your subject also saw people who returned from the Liao region saying that the armors, masks and armguards used by enemy troops(read: Jurchen) are made of "Jingtie" (some kind of high quality steel), and their horses wear the same. That's why during their battle with Joseon encampment, enemy infantry dashed forward and quickly dismantled the chevaux de frise. While Joseon troops are armed with guns (arquebus) and arrows (bow), they could do nothing. This was caused by the durable armor. As for the armors of our soldiers, we could do nothing but somewhat imitate the system of the Helian clan but what we created in the army were all slag contained iron, and other than the chest and back, there are naked parts, when the enemy are within 5 paces, they only shoot at the face, each shot will certainly kill, so no one can resist it."
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Should be noted that with non-standard shot, powder etc. in early modern armies the failure of black powder weapons comes up in many places and should be taken with a grain of salt, as it's more a sign of inconsistency than ideal behavior. There are records even centuries later of colonial European forces complaining of failing to break the skin of unarmored tribals (or vice versa for guns sold to tribals) because their guns were frankly kept in shit condition. See Sir Garnet Wolseley of the Second Anglo-Asante War.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427ah yes group of poor arquebusiers overran by essentially bulletproof heavy cavalry that also happen to carrybows(among their dozens of weapons they carried with them) therefore bows are better than guns
ummm not sure if anyone has pointed this out.... 9:07 ---- 6 arrows a minute is not 60 arrows an hour... it is 60 in ten minutes and 360 an hour not allowing for rest. so 1,800,000 arrows an hour for 5,000 archers with no rest period in that hour...
otherwise enjoy the video.
best way to think of it is if one was truly better, we'd be using just that one instead of both
I am not a archer, but I had had the chance to try to shoot a longbow and several xbows. I am a pretty big guy at 182 cm and of stout build. I am reasonably fit. Shooting smaller bows was allready demanding but I was not able to shoot a 120 pound bow more then once or twice before I was not able to draw it anymore. Xbows where different. Yes the winch took some getting used too, but it was doable without to much strain. The smaller xbows without winch where you stand on it and pull up was more taxing, but i was able to do it about 15 time before straining. Shooting with precision was almost impossible with the long boy because I was pretty much shacking just to maintain the draw for any length of time while with the xbow after a few shots my accuracy was very good.
I personally think the xbow is a better choice for armies that are mustered. The reason is simple. You can practice something and learn it, but building the strength required to shoot a long bow for any length of time efficient takes years. From a logicistical point of view the xbow is a much better weapon when dealing with semi or non proffessional armies.
The one argument for the crossbow that I always found made a lot of sense in a Siege scenario is that you could fully reload the weapon behind cover and than only leave cover to shoot. In order to fire an arrow you have to stand up, draw and shoot without being behind cover.
Crossbowmen were almost always professional warriors, mercenaries. It could not be otherwise, because the cost of their equipment was many times higher than that of archers. Naturally, professional mercenaries were generally better trained in all aspects of warfare at the time. The French kings always preferred crossbowmen, but they did not always have the money to hire enough of them. At Poitiers (1356), the English archers tried to shoot with the French crossbowmen, but even having used up the main supply of arrows, they could not suppress them. There is a mention that the English archers even managed to go into the flank of the French attacking formations, but the arrows bounced off the armor of the French knights moving on foot, which indicates that the effectiveness of the longbow was not at all the same as we are shown in the movies.
In the movies and videogames, heavy armors made of 2mm plates of carbon steel are pierced and cuted trough like they were made of paper instead. It's infuriating
Amazing. The video basically concludes that a direct comparison is pointless due to various reasons. And yet, people in the comments immediately start arguing again about which is better. 👍
because crossbows are better duh
@@54032Zepol But Longbows can fire so much faster, omg. And also Agincourt.
@@nemofunf9862 yes its so easy to shot a bow that fast and accurate please you must be an expert archer go ahead show everyone your bow skills
@@nemofunf9862 Agincourt was won when the longbowmen put away their bows and attacked the French, who were pushing the English line back, in the flanks with melee weapons. It was the swords and axes of the bowmen that won the battle, not the bow. That is why Henry V praised the valor of his longbowmen.
Jesus guys, I was being ironic. Could you please read what I wrote in my original comment?
A quick note on physics here. The "poundage" of a bow is NOT its "power". Commonly confused by historians who stopped doing physics in middle school, but that's no excuse. So a quick physics lesson:
Pound is a measure of force. A 500 pound crossbow means that, at maximum draw, it takes a force equivalent to a 500 pound mass pulled down by gravity to pull the string back any further. *Energy* in the bow is the integral of that force over the draw distance. So the energy is (very roughly) draw weight * spanning distance * some number between 1/2 and 1 depending on the geometry and pre-tension in the bow. This is energy stored in the bow, but not all of that gets transferred to the projectile because, on release parts of the bow itself start moving so the kinetic energy is shared between the arrow and the bow itself.
Does this actually matter for the debate? Not entirely. But getting the elementary science wrong never helps anyone either.
The energy being lost in the bow is relevant here because crossbows, especially of higher weights, have noteably lower efficiency to the point that i think todds workshop founr a heavy crossbow (somthing like 1500 pound i think, its been a while) didnt even have twice the power of one that wan under 400 pounds
@@jeice13 By bow I meant the bendy bit in either a crossbow or longbow. I just didn't feel like writing "crossbow or longbow" 3 times per sentence, so referred to them both as bows. Reread the comment with that in mind.
Oh, and in your last sentence, when you said "power" did you mean energy?
@@QuantumHistorian im aware, though what i was pointing out was more that the often stiffer heavier bow or prod of stronger crossbows typically means that it can not try to accelerate the projectile to the same speeds and thus takes even more losses in efficiency than a bow of the same draw length. They also regularly push the string into the stock creating friction so even the rather impressive chinese crossbows are slightly less efficient than the same mechanism not mounted on a crossbow stock and trigger. European crossbows are worse because they have all the problems i mentioned whereas the asian design managed to put the string catch far enough back to basically be a normal bow mounted on a stock (but with dramatically higher draw weights)
Ultimately the difference between the 2 came down to costs. A crossbow man could have been trained in about 4 to 6 weeks whereas a longbow man was actually someone who trained since childhood. The latter was far more expensive and far less replaceable . During the 100 years war the English kings ensured to protect their longbow men at all costs because they know that their replacement was fat more difficult.
The question of whether getting an army of archers or crossbow users really depended on whether or not your country had a long-standing archery tradition. If yes, then go for the bows because an army of truly skilled archers can fire much faster and be just as powerful and accurate as an army of crosbow users. But if you don't have that tradition, it is far better to invest in crossbows, because you will only need a couple of months to train an army with no archery experience to be good enough with crossbows.
Longbows will never penetrate plate, while super heavy crossbows can.
Rate of argument fire misses out the point that archers can see situations where they should fire faster, and then situations where they would not need to fire as much. So they see an opening and go full out, then they slow down or stop shooting and wait for an opening. The ability to put six arrows where a single crossbow bolt would be is a massive tactical advantage, even if you only use this ability sporadically
Yup, I’m thinking crossbowmen/bowmen vs a cavalry charge would be a good example of opening where more arrows would probably be better
The thing about crossbowmen is that they were still considered infantry being armed with decent weapons and armor. This was possible because it was extremely easier to teach a infantry man how to use a crossbow when needed rather than devoting his life to master the longbow.
Yeah fair point
Im thinking why wouldn’t any infantry man bring multiple weapons with him, for example I’ve heard Roman soldiers very often carried a sling with them tied around their head or waist
So it probably wouldn’t take much to carry a small crossbow with you even if you were say, a spearmen
nope. english longbowmen were know to also able to function as light cavalry("light" by western european standard would still wear a considerable amount of armor and weapons) and some literally become a man at arms later in their career even when started as an archer.
@@dolsopolar first learn how to properly speak English before making claims... " english longbowmen were know to also able to function"
English men were in longbow championships at a very young age by cultural tradition so obviously they were masters of the longbow. Now imagine giving a longbow to somebody in France or Flanders who are in their 30's and have never held one, while expecting them to use it effectively against men with armor or horseback knights within a few weeks before battle. It won't happen.
Before I watch this I have to say: In my experience with both, I regard the longbow the superior weapon. It, however, requires considerable training and years of practice to master. The crossbow fires like a musket. It can be taught in an afternoon and practiced in a week. Furthermore, the musculature of the longbowman is odd and specialized. Any farm boy with a strong back can load a crossbow.
That’s like saying a Toyota Prius is superior to a Ford F250, or vice versa. They are both vehicles and are used for transportation, it just depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with them.
@@davemccage7918 Please parse the statement again and focus on the "I regard" subject and verb. It is like saying you, personally, find an F250 more useful to you. I'm a practiced, open-field archer. If I was a guard I would want a crossbow, instead, but I'm not.
Same
The problem with this trope is that continental Europe very much had crossbow culture, archers competing with each other at shooting competition all over the land, and professional crossbowmen were well paid.... well, professionals.
So you would have plenty of crossbowmen training for years.
And in all likeness, you would have plenty of weekend warriors among the bowmen as well, for every superhero accurately shooting 150 pound bow all day you would have bunch of guys able to loose decent arrow from 80 pound bow few times.
Great video, but your rebuttal of the Longbow = Machine gun point, miss represents how machine guns are used. The high rate of fire exhausts a machine gun as well. Properly used machine guns don’t just spray bullets the entire battle. If they did the would exhaust their ammunition rapidly. But machine guns are still very useful.
A high rate of fire with low bows curry key moments in a battle would still be very useful.
good point. thanks for taking the time to comment! I think articles that refer to the longbow as a medieval machine gun do overemphasize rate of fire though. they kinda make the same assumptions that you rightly pointed out are inaccurate!
I think we underestimate how good and how much endurance bowmen who grew up depending on long bows for food, defense, entertainment, etc. were. The bow likely became like an appendage. Sort of like how one of the reasons the Mongolians were unstoppable was because they were used to doing everything from horseback, especially bows since they were little children. It’s so different in comparison to archery simply as a hobby or even for competition. However, I have no doubt, many people have hilariously inaccurate theories on them.
I love the “crossbows we’re like sniper rifles and longbows were like machine guns” people.
You dont
and also *crossbows were like sniper rifles
One criticism. having crossbowmen teamed up taking turns, does not increase the overall rate of fire, it halves the number shooting at any one time.
I was looking for this comment 👍🏼
Longbowmen also did the same too.
I think the cost are also an intersting factor to look at. Many interpretations are that the mechanical parts of a crossbow had to be more expensive than wood. This leaves out however is that a longbow couldn't be made from simple "wood". England imported Yew for their bows from all over europe, with bavarian sources of the 16 ct stating that not a single yew can be found in the kingdom due to those exports. So it is safe to assume that a longbow wasn't as cheap as many people think.
And... I'm not sure if you'd phrase it 'on top of' or 'in addition to' that, some reports have it that the reason the English eventually had to import the bow staves is because they had logged the yew tree to near if not compete EXTINCTION in the British Islands to make bow staves.
6 arrows / minute != 60 arrows / hour. It's 360 arrows / hour. So 1.8 million arrows / hour at Agincourt, at that rate.
That's not achiavle, archery gets you tired very quickly, not even mentioning the number or arrows.
@@MrCristianposso Never said it was achievable. Merely doing math.
10:30 did it really never occur to you that archers didn't all have to fire at once too? You could have a formation 6 ranks deep, and after the ones in the front fire a volley the second row fires one, then the third ... until you've gone down the whole set and start from the front again. With that setup, you could have a continuous rain of arrows as long as your ammunition held out.
He made all those animations just to be proven wrong by a simple comment
exactly it was the norm to have several rows of archers, after one row shoots it falls back to reload, when they reload the next volley is shot, and so it goes
The obvious pro and cons is the troops. Archers require more training and thus more pay because there's less supply. You could get more crossbowmen because anyone can pick one up and get decent in a week, thus high supply and less pay.
Realistically, if you have enough food and supplies for all the crossbowmen, you can break even on shots per minute vs archers just by having more men.
Archers are not trained, they are raised. That's the problem, if you don't start them early you don't get proper results. Crossbowmen an be trained though. But the kit is more expensive.
Take 20 untrained individuals , give them quick training session and find out . Most likely crossbow would win , it took 5 years and a stack of gold to train bowmen ( although every peasant in England was obliged to train with bow ). Same thing with hand cannon and later with muskets , well trained bowmen would obliterate even musketeers . It all came to price and length of training .
Sustained rate of fire is different from burst rate of fire. Common sense suggests two things to consider and test: 1) a longbowman likely could not keep up a greater rate of fire over an hours long battle than a crossbowman. The work that a crossbowman did was more the kind that can be done all day, like working in a field. The work a longbowman did was like that of a baseball pitcher. He would get fatigued after a certain number of shots. If he were forced to work significantly faster he would get fatigued with fewer shots. And if he worked very hard for a long time one day he may have been rather ineffective the next couple of days. 2) At certain moments in the battle it would likely be advantageous for a unit to loose many arrows/bolts in a short period of time. The longbow provides such flexibility, offering a potential tactical advantage.
Also, the way crossbows were used tactically perhaps ranged widely as it seems there were a wide range of types of crossbows available.
I think the question of which was better in battle is unknowable. Perhaps the choice between the two came down more to social and economic conditions than to battlefield effectiveness. If one were significantly more overall effective than the other then the other would likely have faded away. But whether to employ one or the other may have come down to the situation one found oneself in. Longbowmen required years of training to be able to pull war bows. Some places had what could be called a longbow culture. Yet in other places, mercenaries preferred to equip themselves with crossbows. What is the reason for that? Was there a greater survivability for crossbowmen? Was there a cost advantage to the longbow unit in places where a longbow culture existed, but in the case of a mercenary group who is paid for their effectiveness in battle it was no problem to deal with the extra equipment cost? It seems hard to answer these questions without first knowing how the units were employed in battle and what capabilities they gave to the commanders under whom they fought.
I'd have to say one point on the rate of fire:
Historically most fighting probably wasn't done in big battles, but rather smaller skirmishes and ambushes, where rate of fire definetly is a huge factor. To be fair, second to that would be sieges, where it generally isn't a factor at all...
I think you're looking at rare-of-fire the wrong way. After all, modern machine guns don't fire continuously for hours at a time. They would quickly overheat. ... However, what they can do is generate a high a volume of fire at critical points during a battle. ... It would have made sense for archers to operate in a similar manner, firing rapidly when they needed to and conserving their arrows at other times.
Makes sense to me.
The point touched earlier in the video is one of the most important. Clearly two different places at different times developed military weapon systems based on different principles, one on high intensive labor input and the other on high intensive capital input, and thus developed their entire technological, logistical, productive and cultural forms of organization around them. These complex regional historical systems are not born out of a simple game theoretic minmax calculation of "which system is objectively better accross all possible scenarios" because even the systems themsevels weren't perfectly efficient, indeed there was literally no way to ensure either perfect training standards for archers or perfect manufacturing standards for crossbows.
Furthermore the organization of technological and labor resources was highly descentrallized and informal, and greatly regionally circumscribed, so a game theoretic arms race probably wasn't ever necessary nor plausible. For example there was probably no reason for genoese crossbowmen to adapt their system significantly much as a result of their loss against the english since their area of military operations clearly was not centered on Northern Europe anyways, nor can it ever be proven if the victory was a fluke because English archers didn't go south either to try and fight crossbowmen with full pavisses. The point is that these systems could for the most part remain relatively aloof of each other, the same way that saracen archery didn't lead to a revolution of dropping the objectively inferior self bows for recurves.
Another extremely important point is derived from imposing modern standards of warfare on premodern warfare, because melee combat was a thing back then, and as such ranged weapons shouldn't strictly be judged with regards to how they compete directly against each other, but how do they compete against melee troops which have a parallel arms race going on with ranged weaponry through the development of armor.
In short, pockets of relative inefficiency, overfitting to specific regional tactical niches, and culturally bound inertia, plus a very small differential of effectiveness either way, are all reasons as to why both systems coexisted rather than extinguished each other. In the later gunpowder period, when you see a much more closely integrated literary military culture, more far reaching military endeavors, and a greater technological and tactical innovative frontier, is when you start seeing rapid and sustained change in army organization
I think the biggest reasons why the crossbow took over in mainland europe have little to do with efficiency of the weapon. By the end of the middle ages, yew became quite rare, at the same time metallurgy got a lot better making steel prods the better choice for a mass produced weapon. Crossbows and its bolts are also the better weapon to stock up armories, much easier to maintain than a delicate wooden bow with comparably flimsy arrrows (compared to a thick rugged wooden fletched crossbow bolt of course) that might even warp rendering them less useful or completly useless. Since sieges were the most common type of engagement, in the case of a besieged town you could just hand them out to some moderately trained citizens as defense was often organised by the guilds. A crossbow is also of course the better weapon for the defender. So now you already have a weapon thats common in use, its just logical that that weapon gets more popular for general warfare use. Later when the arquebus and musket came around, they quickly replaced the crossbow as they filled pretty much the same niche.
The game changer for the longbow, that is often ignored is the access and culture of the longbow. In England, you had a culture of your peasants using longbows. It was a form of survival and pride. England nailed it with hosting competitions for the longbow. This gave the poor a realistic path to climbing the hierarchy or at least make some real money.
The main benefits of all this are... when it was time for war, you had a very large pool of ready made, veteran archers that came equipped and ready to roll. The advantages of this cannot be overstated. Also, a citizenry who can repel invading armies if pushed... another major advantage.
what about range? strangely no mention of that. i'd reckon thats an important metric. also, wind resistance? maybe not as important but we know of at least one battle that was essentially decided by the wind, the battle of towton where the counter wind shortened the range of the arrows massively so they all fell short to the jeers of the enemy. crossbow bolts are heavier (i think?) and travel in a flat trajectory so im guessing wind would have less effect on them?
... Obviously I am imagining this part of the video. Longbow c. 3x range of Crossbow. ua-cam.com/video/dO_8ZQ37D4Y/v-deo.html
Bows were also generally fired straight. The hail of arrows thing is a movie trope. Bows were not usually fired in an arc like some kind of massed artillery at longer ranges than they can be fired straight, they were just fired straight at the target, much the same as crossbows. Similar range and power. Huge variability in the power and range of both bows and crossbows anyway.
@@rickansell661Yes, it was shown, but not brought up as an argument. So does it matter or not?
I think the most important thing is that people realize they're not directly comparable.
They both provided the capability of man portable direct fire. But in many ways that's where the similarities end. Drawing modern comparisons isn't really viable.
For example, a crossbow has a low skill floor and a low skill ceiling. Where a longbow has a higher skill floor and a very high skill ceiling.
Give someone a crossbow and train them for a couple days and they'll figure it out.
A couple days training with a longbow and they'll still need years of conditioning before their back is strong enough to fire a legitimate warbow.
Not to mention the difference in marksmanship techniques. The crossbow requires mechanical skill, where a longbow requires a kinesthetic intuition.
You could say that longbows are more powerful, but the counter argument would be something like an arbalest or windlass.
To which the counter argument could be the longbow can fire faster than either of those.
To which the counter argument could be that it takes years or decades to train a good warbow archer, but only months to a year for a good heavy crossbow Archer.
To which the counter argument could be etc etc
Essentially I'm taking the really long way of saying that military procurement at any point in history is a complex topic. So the only reason we boil it down to something as simple as crossbow versus longbow is because we don't live in a time where it matters and all the geopolitical, cultural, and economic context exists.
But in historical times the decision between crossbow and longbow could have come down to factors such as was hunting illegal for the last 20 years? Because if it was then you probably wouldn't have enough trained archers and would need to use whatever variety of crossbow is most likely to defeat your opponents armor at that time.
This comment should be pinned
I think people vastly underestimate culture and economics in the debate. England had a longbow culture and thus, likely more longbow crafters and people who dedicated themselves to training with them. If you were to join the English army and had to buy a ranged weapon surrounded by longbows, you’re probably going to want to buy a longbow. And that sentiment probably transferred to the generals composing the armies.
Similarly, the Italians, particularly in Genoa, had a crossbow culture. As you said, people weren’t drawing out charts comparing the two, probably just using the ranged weapon of the culture.
This plus the industrial capabilities. Italy was technologically more advanced than England in that period and thus was capable of creating more complex weapons. England in the middle ages was a relatively privitive country for European standards.
I always thought it was quite simple, the British allowed the arming of its peasantry ( with enforced practise of archery for generations)where the French was always wary of that…..
6 arrows per minute does not equal 60 arrows per hour
6x 60=360
At least where I live...
XD
6 arrows per minute would equal 360 arrows per hour.
So at Agincourt you would be talking 1.8 million arrows per hour. That's a logistical impossibility.
Indeed.
That's literally 10 seconds between each notch. Only about half of the longbowmen would be loosing arrows at a time and would be rotated in and out to allow for breaks and rest (in order to maintain a body of fresh archers at all times), and they would have been on a "notch, draw, loose" mark. So you can go ahead and cut that inititial figure down by more than half, and then once you account for the inevitable extended pauses in-between volleys (to assess effectiveness from the current range), reformations of firing lines, etc, it's not really that far fetched at all.
People never realize that these two weapons had different purposes crossbows were smashing weapons which is why they had heavy bolts with blunt rounded tips and crossbows had 1000 pound draw weights. They were meant to hit a larger wooden or armored target and smash through it. bows are mean to penetrate through soft flesh which is why the arrows are sharper, lighter,thinner, longer also more tip heavy to provide a faster more stable flight using less draw weight. Less draw weight also meant that the reload speed of bows made them more suitable for firing at smaller, individual, moving, fleshy targets but the blunt force of a crossbow made it more suitable for smashing through carriages
Also, crossbows were known for their more larger brethren, ballistas and scorpions of you were Roman. Those were ancient artillery engines. The crossbow was just the next step in miniaturising an already effective weapon of war.
Like how cannons paved the way for muskets and modern firearms.
@@TheNapster153 yes sir love it when I got historians in the building
I love the longbow machine gun animation. Hilarious! Great work.
To my knowledge crossbowman were generally professional soldiers serving as either mercenary companies or fortification garrison. While english longbowmen could also be professional, but were many times levied in times of war. So it is quite convenient for levies to already have the skills needed and or the equipment. Crossbows had much higher cost so were not as viable for mass training and private ownership. In other european countries it was generally prefered do employ levie troops as pikemen.
Something that all of these comparisons miss out on is the logistics required to support the weapons.
Crossbows were heavier, required specialized craftsman to maintain, and would be difficult to repair in the field without heavy specialized equipment and materials. This all means that your supply convoy needs to move more men and material. Which means a slower advance, more difficulty crossing rough terrain, which means more mouths to feed and increased caloric requirements. Both for the men and the animals pulling the carts. Especially when you get into heavy longbow versus heavy crossbow. You could carry dozens of replacement bowstrings for the weight of a single metal crossbow string.
Yes the time required to train archers impacts these decisions. However this is offset but the time required to train blacksmiths to maintain crossbows. Every archer would be adept at maintaining their own bow and wouldn’t be reliant on a specialized individual. If they break a string during a battle they could replace it themselves quickly. If you break a crossbow or lose the blacksmiths in your column your crossbowmen are out of commission.
Specialized weapons and tactics win battles. Logistics wins wars.
but imagine this, you have armored infantry to which you add a crossbow
while the enemy is far away, they are archers, when he gets close, then they are armored infantry
there is no such thing with a bow and arrow, when it comes to close combat, they are very light infantry, only mobility saves them, if possible
But a longbow arrow is normaly much longer then the crossbow Bolt Problems for transport and storage castles are often not that Big!
And you need good wood for longbows!
If you want to use powerfull Longbow you need the right persons i think isnt just about training its about genetics as well!
And after my knowledge Crossbow Bolts need usually 2 vanes Longbow arrows usually 3 vanes !
And Heavy draw weight Bow shoting can fast destroy the body of the Archers!
Long bow arrows are more costly and time intensive to craft as well though.
Why don't we look at the spread of their use?
I don't know about all about Europe, but in the Iberian peninsula it seems that the bow was more common in the earlier period, before crossbows took over starting somewhere in the 10th-11th century. The bow was still kept for specialized purposes, but the crossbow became the favoured long-ranged infantry weapon.
The people that lived before us were not stupid. Their lives depended on using the best military technology available to them in order to survive. If both crossbows and bows were used at the same time does that not imply that they are both formidable weapons but with slightly different use cases?
The varying regional popularity of crossbows and bows is to be expected because people face different geographical, strategic, cultural etc circumstances. However, it does seem like generally by the later middle ages that crossbows were more common in most countries across Europe. This implies to me that the crossbow was generally favoured, possibly due to crossbowmen being easier to train and replace than bowmen. But if a country had access to excellent archers, they would encourage their proliferation and use them in battle. This is the case with England.
I also believe the whole longbow vs crossbow debate is a bit of anglo-saxon chauvinism, since it was such an iconic English weapon. Therefore in the past people have tried to big it up for reasons of national pride. Hence why there is more research available on the longbow than the crossbow, at least in English.
Great video, keep up the good work!
Also people faced different enemies at different times. At early medieval it was common to massing peasants with only shields, but later more of the levy were equipped with padded armour or even mails. Also the number of professional troops increased therefore the armour.
When we want to answer the question "which is the better weapon" we should consider "against who"
@@zord1352 This is also relevant for OP's example of Iberia. They did fight Western style armies, but also had the Moors in their backyard and were more often concerned with them for many centuries during the Reconquista. So you see some trends in Iberia that were very unique compared to other European regions, including adopting some Islamic inspired tactics or equipment. The use of light shields, javelins, crossbows etc. are noteworthy, as well as a surprising amount of lightly armored skirmishers who were instead meant to be easy on logistics and able to track down a mobile (and probably also lightly armored) enemy force. Even their heavily armored men at arms tended to be slightly lighter than elsewhere, or at least very slightly behind in armor trends.
When one compares these weapons it's hard without the tactical usage being brought into consideration. The longbow's famous battles were won by men positioned behind battlefield defences designed to hinder an enemy advance, Ideally some reconnaissance would have taken place allowing for the marking of range, All these act as force multipliers. In open field battles where the only shelter a longbowman could take was a ditch. gully, or hiding behind the heavily armoured men-at-arms, rendered them far less effective. Crossbowmen were better in open-field battles, especially when deployed where shields could protect those reloading whilst the first 'rank' fired. However these were far more cumbersome formations dependent both on the discipline of the archers and those of the 'shock troops' following in their wake. Medieval commanders did not have a good reputation for patience or tactical acumen, regularly launching speculative charges in search of glory when time spent waiting for the crossbowmen to do their work would have been far more sensible.
Yes, the longbow is mostly famous for winning the few battles where it was allowed to perfectly exploit it's advantage, generally through the ineptitude of enemy commanders calling to rapidly advance on a well prepared enemy position.
Here is my two cents:
1. The crossbow is a weapon more geared toward skirmishing. More suited to men going out in front of the enemy to harass and screen. This is evidenced by the fact that the crossbow is more of a direct-fire and short range weapon. The crossbowman's job is to annoy the enemy and hold the foe at bay, and to prevent the enemy crossbowmen from doing the same.
2. The longbow is more the weapon for infantry support. This is why the longbow can preform better indirect-fire. Essentially the longbow is replicating the effects of an entire line of spearmen, only these spearmen often attack from above. This is why there were no pervasive pavise archers, they weren't going up against other ranged weapons.
3. I believe our way of looking at the evolution of arms is flawed. It is my theory that the handgun/musket was not the replacement for the crossbow or archer, but instead the replacement for the melee weapon of the common soldier. when we look at the roles formerly performed by the crossbowman and archer, we find their replacement is field artillery. Consider how cannon typically used more individually powerful cannon balls at longer range in a skirmishing fashion and grape or canister shot (essentially replicating the effects of an entire line of musketeers) at closer range for infantry support.
The third point is quite correct, firearms replaced the halberd pike combination with pike and shot
Contrary to popular belief, *mounted archers* (who shoot from saddle) were quite common during medieval time in Europe. English archers often fought mounted, as depicted in various contemporary pictures (Google it).
During raiding expedition (chevauchee), many, if not most of the English soldiers were mounted, including the archers.
Crossbowman too fought on horseback, but I suppose crossbow could not be as effective due to being more unwieldy, not to mention the apparent difficulty to reload on horseback.
@@marcus1992000 this could even apply out to the napoleonic era order of battle.
Point 3 is largely incorrect. Melee continued to dominate warfare well into the 19th century. Even WW1 saw the return of flails. The Swedish Empire in particular was known to use its muskets more like glorified single-shot javelins before charging into melee.
@@vanivanov9571 while it is no doubt a fact that melee continued to play an often decisive role on the battle field, my point was that the tactical usage of the crossbow and longbow more closely resemble the use of cannon than muskets. Point three has more to do with the perception of the evolution of arms than with the popularity of melee versus ranged combat.
the battle order of the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights described mounted crossbowman in a dual role of skirmishers and second line shock cavalry.
and surviving documents suggests that in the 15th century german speaking areas a lance was considered of one knight, one squire and one mounted crossbowman as minimum requirment
Mounted crossbowers don't enough attention.
@b.h.abbott-motley2427 it really doesnt specially when hunting with crossbows was actually a thing
@@hassanobeid99 Hunting with crossbows & poisoned bolts was even a thing after firearms had become ubiquitous. The poison one 17th-century Spanish hunting manual describes supposedly works very fast, so it's curious it wasn't used in warfare more if it was really so effective.
Ballistrieri a cavalo? Was that their Italian name? I think that were used a lot by the Venetians and Milanese.
Yeah i understand, like dragoons I think they will be used for scouting role or setup ambushes, I think their role would be pretty limited
9:05 I think you forgot a 3 in the 60 arrow/hour as for 6 arrows/minute = 6*60 arrows/hour = 360 arrows/hour and for 5000 archers that'd be a staggering 1.8 million arrows per hour!
I can't imagine shooting 1 arrow per minute in the middle of a battle lol.
In all three of the famous "archer battles", Crecy, Poitier and Agincourt the French Knights reached the English line and the battle was decided hand to hand. So, my questions, were the archers more influential because of archery or as light infantry? Maybe their ability to do both competently?
Exactly! Most people don't realize that the battle of Agincourt especially was won by the English only when the longbowmen attacked the French in the flanks with melee weapons. They only hear that the longbowmen were credited with winning the battle and assume it was with the bow. If that had been the case then Henry V wouldn't have praised the valor of his longbowmen.
English line? They were all Welsh!
@@WalesTheTrueBritons The bowmen in the English army at the time were mostly Englishmen. Welshmen generally made up less than 10% of the bowmen. The longbow itself was of Welsh origin but that doesn't mean that only they used it. By the end of the 100 years war the French had adopted its use. And hired Welsh longbowmen as well so there were probably more Welshmen fighting for the French throughout the war than the English.
I don't think anyone was thinking that people were shooting six arrows per minute sustained.
But the high rate of fire would still land you an advantage if at any point, the enemy offered you a soft target for any amount of time over 10 seconds by this test.
If there's a cavalry charge that's in range for 22 seconds your archers might be rested from not having a target for a while and then they can all get twice as many shots off as a crossbowman could.
The crossbow is better for no other reason other than ease of use. You can train a group of men how to shoot a crossbow well in a week, it takes years to teach someone to shoot a bow well.
Not quite, you can learn to shoot a bow accurately fairly fast.... However to shoot a heavy warbow needs years of training to lay on the muscle in the right places, and with the really big bows, to warp your skeleton to the point it can stand the pressures involved.
Muskets replaced them both because you can teach almost anyone how to load and fire in under an hour...... Speed (like 3 to 4 rounds fired in a minute) takes extra practice though
Being able to hold your aim for a long time is also an upside. I've read that crossbows also could be manufactured faster, wich would be a big deal but I'm not sure about that.
There's no such thing as "a better weapon". It's "better weapon for a specific application and circumstance", which includes shit like skills of the wielder and training time. A gun is generally considered a superior weapon to a knife, and for good reason. But knives never jam, never run out of bullets, and make a lot less noise. So, in a few rare circumstances (like needing to maintain stealth and already being close to the enemy), the knife is the superior choice.
A master longbowman can do a lot of things that a master crossbowman cannot. But, during the time period these weapons were in common use, it was common practice to recruit peasants, give them a crash course in how to use one easily learned weapon, and march them off to battle. A longbowman takes years of dedicated training to reach proficiency. The crossbow demands only weeks to months of training to reach proficiency. Lower rate of fire, probably longer range, easier to strike individual targets. More compact and maneuverable in tight quarters such as stone hallways and atop ramparts. The nobility hated it because it allowed a peasant with limited training to slay a fully armored mounted knight (ie member of nobility) in combat. At one point, they tried to have the weapon banned because it was so effective at defeating their armor and dealing them mortal wounds.
In videogame parlance, the longbow is a high skill-floor, high skill-ceiling weapon. The crossbow is a low skill-floor, mid skill-ceiling weapon. Master longbowman vs master crossbowman in a duel, I'd bet on the longbowman based on fire rate and the assumption that both know how to dodge. But masters of each weapon were rare.
The phrase is "arbalests are trained, archers are raised."
@@darthkek1953 I've never heard that turn of phrase, but it sounds about right.
On the rate of fire discussion, rate of fire was almost certainly crucial. Your uptime, the burst rate, are critical. You don't need to shoot 6 hours a minute the entire hour. You need to do it for that brief period where the enemy is within your effective range but not too close that it's dangerous for archers or your own infantry are engaged. Battles are hours of boredom and minutes of intensity. A loose comparison is to modern air cooled machine guns and assault rifles. They cannot sustain automatic fire very long and their sustained rate is much lower than cyclical rate. Soldiers also would run out of ammo within minutes if they fired full auto during the entire engagement. It's useful for those brief windows where you are fighting. The machinegun comparison is actually fairly accurate in this regard.
That makes a lot of sense. I imagine the longbowmen would rapid fire as the enemy charged making a wall of arrows to thin the heard. After that it would be single shots at aimed targets wherever possible.
The English longbow's power lay in mandatory training, turning ordinary people into professional soldiers. This enabled England to quickly raise an army without straining its economy. The taxation system revolved around bow and arrow production, allowing even peasants to contribute in supplies, unlike traditional taxation limited to the nobility. This marked the birth of the industrial military complex and helped a small, damp island compete with larger, wealthier nations like France and Spain.
Whoa
You do realize that the owners of that 'small, damp island' were at the same time also the biggest vassal of the French kings up to around 1200? And what made the English compete with the Spanish was a lucky timing of bad weather.
Mandatory training meant once a week. That does not make anybody a professional soldier.
I think that the relative mechanical complexity of a crossbow should be taken into account, it makes the weapon more user friendly and requires less training to use sure but as any soldier will tell you technology in the field will break and theres no way your fixing a crossbow in the field, whereas the simpler nature of a bow means less to go wrong , and of the two things that can go wrong (string breaks or bow breaks) one can be done by the soldier in the fielr
The anwer is musket
I think Crossbow men defending a towers or a Gatehouse would most likely have other people loading more than one Crossbow just swapping them over being ready to fire so they are only require to aim and shoot making them more Deadly.
A likely benefit of the crossbow in sieges is that you can keep it aimed for a long time, waiting for someone to let their guard down... Also if you risk running out of arrows, there's a reduced benefit to a high rate of fire.
English style was to dig pits 1 foot square and deep to break up cavalry charges. The archer carried large stakes which they pounded into the ground with lead mallets and then sharpened.
Imagine that you are in a group of longbowmen and the French cavalry are beginning their charge. They are out at a slow trot and slowly pick up speed. For the last 50-100' the charge at their top speed. At maximum range (200-300 yards) you probably fire a couple of shots per minute for harassment value and who knows "you might get lucky." When that body approaches the max effective range (60-100 yards) is when you'd start pouring it on. Tired after 12-18 shot isn't going to be as much of an issue because with all of that steel coming at you adrenaline will kick in. Also, that cavalry charge is going to cover that 60-100 yards very quickly. Hopefully the pits (1 foot wide/long and 1 foot deep) that you've dug and the stakes that you have planted break that charge. If they have you can pull out your lead mallet and have at any knights that have been disabled or can be overwhelmed by your numbers. You likely won't shoot much until the cavalry have disengaged because you don't want to hit your own.
The footman charge is a bit different. They'll be the ones without the status or cash to have a horse. They'll likely be less heavily armored. The action will be similar. They will form up and begin at a march. as they close the distance they will begin to move at a trot. For the last 10-20 yards they charge. You'll fire a few shot per minute to harass them at max range. As they approach max effective range is when you will pour it on. On foot they will be closing the distance much slower so you'll have more time to hammer them. Adrenaline will kick in, but you will start to tire and slow and get a bit sloppy as they approach melee. Hopefully your fire has broken up their formation and dramatically thinned their numbers. Once again you pull out your lead mallet and go after them as they negotiate the pits that you have dug and the stakes that you have planted. There should be some men at arms out front to help and the enemy will be fighting fatigue from their double time march and the last 10-20 yards of charging. Once again you might fire some aimed shots, but until the French break contact or a second wave comes in you likely won't shoot much.
I wouldn't characterize the long bow as only a harassment tool. As the enemy closes it will have the power to punch through cheaper/earlier plate armor. Later in the period armor made of better steel with sloped/curved plates would have been more resilient, but this stuff was expensive in comparison. Your average knight would not have been able to afford it even to save his life.
I think that the depictions in Bernard Cornwell's books are very likely close reality.
Crossbowmen's job would have been similar. Fire harassing shots at max range and pour it on when the enemy reaches a range where the bolts should penetrate the enemy's armor more effectively. Which a sovereign uses would depend on what is available and what they can afford. If you have a large peasant body that practices with the longbow regularly then you use them. If you have access to a large amount of cash you hire professional mercenary crossbowmen. If you have access to neither then you put what crossbow you can afford into the hands of some peasants and you train them as money and/or time affords. Late crossbows with steel arms could shoot 340-500 yards. That doesn't mean that they were accurate or could reliably kill at that range. Since the crossbow couldn't fire as fast one would have to adjust their tactics.
No, you won't fire a few arrows at maximum range. You would fire lots of arrows at maximum range because the more you fire the more are likely to hit and possibly injure a target. Its not aimed fire its area fire.
It as also important to remember that a lot of the troops longbows might be firing at were not heavily armoured. It was never just knights in plate armour for much of that period.
It's not very accurate to say a crossbow was a sniper weapon with its limited range. More accurate to describe it as a marksman weapon maybe. US Army snipers in Korea and Vietnam used the M2 .50 caliber Machine Gun as a long range precision weapon. USMC Sniper Carlos Hathcock had the longest recorded kill for 4 decades using this weapon system.
Of course we live in a time where most people get their ideas of Medieval battle tactics from Hollywood, which generally just gets it wrong.
I think people considered it as "Sniper weapon" because it were quite good against value "armoured" target from a distance.
It was great to see all the debates around the subject. Gives you an example of the size of the debate.
This video confuses power with draw weight, which is only one out of three factors that determine power. Whether a bow or crossbow is more powerful is really dependent on the three factors of draw weight, power stroke, and efficency of the prod. Some bows are actually more powerful than many crossbows. Furthermore, the prod of crossbows did not necessarily evolve from wood to composite to steel. These different materials existed at the same time during the late middle ages, and composite material was actually a better but more expensive material to use than steel.
6 arrows per min and 60 min in an hour means 360 arrows per hour with no exhaustion. By 5,000 archers that would be 1,800,000 arrows. Whoever your logistics guy is who said 300,000 arrows should be tarred and feathered 😂🤣 9:03
Go ahead, fire 6 arrows per minute with a 120lb warbow for 1 hour, and get back to us about the "no exhaustion" aspect you claim, yeah?
If you survive the cardiac arrest, that is.
I am afraid there are a few points in your piece that need to be taken into more thoroughly, namely: 1) Seems to me that most sources taken into account are in English. However, there exist dozens of manuals on reflex bows in Arabic, Turkish or Persian. Also, bow in various forms was used in the whole of Europe, not only in England and France but also in Scandinavia, Germany, Bohemia and Poland-Lithuania. There could be other sources in those lands. 2) In addition to Mary Rose data, there are also so-called pipe rolls in England from which it could be gleaned how many arrows/bolts were stored in various castles of the Crown - and possibly also a number of archers /crossbowmen stationed there at a specific time.
Look at the title of the video. The video covers the comparison between *LONGBOWS* and crossbows. Not just any bows. That means that sources from other countries won't be useful unless they contain relevant data about crossbows.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 I was reacting on domě points Sand made in the course of his Pieve, not the title.
@@kamilszadkowski8864longbow is any bow that is sufficiently long. It is not unique technology.
Great discussion. I'm glad you touched on two vital fallacies:
1. Rate of fire is overrated. On paper, yes, the longbow could get more arrows out quicker - but so what? Commentators play into the "damage per second" video game logic when in reality, no weapon is practically shot at their maximum rate of fire. The sensationalist view continually pushes the speed aspect of archery without regard to the effectiveness. There was little purpose in shooting to miss and running out of arrows when it really mattered.
2. The "archery laws" of England. This has continually be construed to mean that every single person in England was an expert archer because they trained every Sunday. However, that is not what the history thoroughly documents. We know of the laws regarding ownership of bows. We know of the passive aggressive reminders to keep on practising. This doesn't mean that a population that otherwise had no use for archery would be proficient marksmen. I'm glad that you provided the alternate view that these laws could suggest that the people were _not_ putting in the time to practice.
1. If men are charging at you, you will appreciate every arrow you can get into their ranks in that short time. You don't need a high rate of fire throughout an entire battle.
2. ...They weren't taking all of England to France. Only the top few % of archers were taken on campaign, with high standards. The English became very proud of their bow culture, and it's survived today, the idea they weren't producing good arches is historical revisionism.
I am a sworn crossbowman, but I straightly think, that a large group of trained longbowmen would quite rapidly drive a large group of crossbowmen into chaos if put face to face 150 yards between them.
And that would never happen in a real battle unless you had a catastrophically awful commander in charge of your armies.
Both formations would be supremely vulnerable to cavalry or being out flanked.
@@SHDW-nf2ki Indeed😊
@@janneplanman6433 The word pavises also springs to mind. Am I right in thinking these were never used by the English longbow men? And that it would have been very difficult to do so?
@@donaldduck4888 Oh yes. Heavy crossbows were pain in the ass of the people inside sieged places -and even longbows in my opinion were only to bring chaos on the field. Maces and axes with spears and poleaxes were the killing weapons requiring close combat. It was all the same with black powder guns 3 to 4 hundred years ago. I saw a wonderful example of the very beautiful gunfire-tested armor in the war museum in Paris 15 years ago. If the bullet pierced the chest plate, then the armor would have been no good. There was a shallow round pit in the chest plate, so that piece was accepted. I wonder, however, what would it have been like with all those horses in the battle!? Were usually armored -and how well..!? Cavalry without horses would not be a Cavalry... Riders often seemed to stay in the saddle through the battle, or..? So if there were archers or crossbowmen involved, then their efficiency would (often?) have been questionable, because the 'Mighty cavalry' is often mentioned as the elite group of the battle..!? Of course they wouldn't have wanted to sacrifice the horses easily 🤔 It is hard to imagine a battle hundreds of years ago after watching all those fantasy movies with belly slits by swords through armors🤭
True. But he makes a good point on how bows are different. You cant do harassing volleys with crossbows like a bow can.
>the internet has strong opinions on something
Oh boy, here we go again.
Is there something that the intwernet doesnt have a strong opinion of?
It's been said a crossbow is nothing but a crappy gun.
In the Napoleonic wars the Duke of Wellington toyed with the idea of bringing back archers as the long bow had an unbeatable advantage over the musket-- the ability to massacre entire armies with 'arc' fire. Keep in mind the effective range of 200-300 yards is about the same, but both muskets and crossbows rely on direct fire. It's the old game of "rock/ paper/ scissors" Armour defeat arrows. Muskets defeat armour. Arrows defeat muskets. The Duke's idea never came to fruition-- impossible to train a legion of archers over night.
That statement is not entirely accurate.
A Longbow’s maximum effective range might indeed be 2-300 yards, on par with the effective *Aimed* range of a Musket, but that is only true in terms of effective accuracy. This is because the Musket still has a far superior range nearly double that of the Longbow, capable of reaching distances of 5-600 yards and maintaining its lethality. The use of Long Range Volleyfire could be used to effectively whittle down an opposing force as they march into closer aimed Volley fire distances.
And once the development of Rifled Muskets were developed, that lethal range of 5-600 yards was more likely as an aimed shot would fly more true.
That said, a Longbow in the age of the Musket would still be a terrifyingly effective weapon against lightly Armoured Musket infantry of the Napoleonic era. However in the late medieval period, plate armour was still an effective defence against both Crowssbows and early Muskets.
Medieval history is such a fascinating subject.
power is not directly related. the time the power is applied is very important a crossbow has a very short power stroke usually a few inches a longbow is in modern times thought of as having a draw length of 28 inches the power reduces a bit through the power stroke but the long power styroke adds greatly to the energy the arrow carries i am an ametur archer. being freakishly tall my draw length is 32 inches so at best there is an average but it was variable. also after shooting once a week, 90 arrows wiyhin a year i was getting at least 80 into the bullseye at 30 meters and Iwas far from the best so at that distance I could put an arrow int a persons face others were doing that at double the distance so do not underestimate long bow accuracy especially in someone who trained for decades. a lot of this was to handle high draw weights but accuracy alsoimproves. assuming a medieval archer has poor aim is likely a good way to die painfully
In large scale battles accuracy of the degree you mention is not that important. It was more important for everybody to shoot at a certain range. I don't think they were choosing individual headshots. It would be very hard to coordinate who shoots who.
Another aspect is the distance. The distances were far greater, going into the hundreds of meters at certain points during the battle. There is also a big chance that archers would have to shoot over their own infantry so they would not have a direct line of sight on the enemy. I have not shot a bow enough times to be able to say how much that influences one's ability to hit a target but I imagine it adds another skill element to shooting a bow (having to shoot upwards so that the arrow hits the target on the way down).
What is better weapon, crossbow or longbow?
Simple answer - neither. If one would be undeniably better, the other wouldn't be used at all. But they were both used at the same time, so both have to have a merit.
And they both started to fall out of use at about the same time. Also, if the crossbow was superior (regarding all factors in warfare) then the only explanation for the English using longbowmen en masse is that every English ruler for about 300 years was either too stubborn or stupid to abandon it, which is implausible.
Longbow was better but took decades of training and skill, also to make it was harder as you needed good trees to make such long bows, while crossbows were easier to make with shortbows and metal mechanical components, throw on quicker training time, easier to supply/replace and easier to use defensive items like the pavese, crossbowmen were worse combat wise but if you could field more of them you could get more value out.
Gunpowder just ends up being an upgrade of the crossbow for the same reasons, easier to produce, less training, still fatal, once you have critical mass, guns win
@@saintpres4ge533 crossbows being cheaper to make??!
@@EroticOnion23 With advances in machinery after the black death plus crossbows also using short bows which meant you could make them easier than requiring specific trees. Also being more metal components.
In essence, after a certain point it was easier and cheaper to mass produce crossbows than it was to make longbows.
Combine this with having more versatile soldiers with less training required meant you could field more crossbowmen, for cheaper and replace them easier.
Once the Industrial revolution happened, guns replaced both with ease, having factories that could pump out crates of guns dwarfed everything else
@@saintpres4ge533 longbows were just a stick with a string?
Pretty sure I recall reading that there were crossbow guilds in many towns and cities in Europe. So they idea that longbowmen were the only ones practicing regularly while arbalists were levies whose hands were filled with a crossbow does not seem entirely accurate
I mean it just depends. Sure, there were probably many “professional” crossbow men, however, in the case of a siege for example, they likely just had a bunch of crossbows lying around in the armory for the local militia to use so that they could inflate their numbers. But otherwise, the militia were obviously just commoners.
an important aspect of range is that it is not about how far a weapon shoots but within what range it is effective. That is btw where a longbow drops to ranges where a musket is more lethal. Sure, you can fire farther but why would you bother, you are unlikely to get through armor and shields anyway. In fact in the late Middle Ages we are talking alot of armor even among common soldiers, a lot of heavy shields, a lot of formation fighting. A longbow cannot even get through plate at 10 meters.
In the meantime the range at which an arquebus is still accurate it will also still punch through armor and thus actually has a longer effective range than a bow against formed infantry. So suddenly the supposedly aweful range of arequebus and muskets is actually a longer effective range than what bows and crossbows could do.
Even before I do believe the range at which longbow archers would fire in volleys against an enemy assault would actually not be that far out to what arquebusiers would do.
In the same vein fire superiority is a concept of modern warfare, not how missile weapons were used in the past. Ammo consumption and their availability would prevent that. Again, advantage ultimately went with gun powder weapons. The accuracy was decent enough at the ranges that mattered with more ammo to shoot and high lethality at the receiving end.
Rate of fire argument doesnt hold up. An archer needs his rate of fire at specific moments not for hours on end- if his unit flanked the enemy he would be going full rate of fire into them
Can't time being used as a deciding factor? I mean, we seen in pictures and heard of the stories of the conquistadors who ventured to the New World arming with crossbows before but never heard of a single one who is armed with a longbow. That means that crossbows are still being used alongside with early forms of firearms while longbows have been phased out by that point in time.
Yes and no. Crossbows remained in use probably for the same reasons they had been in use before, be it cultural or economic. Spain never had a significant contingent of longbowmen to begin with.
Crossbows aboard ships actually suffered a downgrade over time in terms of technology and poundage. The majority of depictions of Portuguese and Spanish crossbows in use in Africa and the Americas used a lever or belt, for example, which implies a lower poundage. It means easier construction, due to less stress, but also pragmatic use of what was the intended theater.
This is common even in the 15th century where lower poundage crossbows remain relevant until very late.
The English were still using longbows during this time
Not really, Spain wasn't a huge user of longbows in the first place and firearms didn't replace longbows because of some inherent design advantage, at least in the first place. Plus you have to consider the environment you're talking about, longbows made out of yew are pretty sensitive to humidity and the Spanish Conquistadors were operating in very humid environments, a crossbow with steel arms would be relatively unaffected.
According to Garcilaso de la Vega, there were two members of Hernando de Soto's company armed with bows. One was English & another was a Spaniard raised in England. De la Vega express great respect for bows, noting how certain Native groups the Spaniards fought were excellent archers.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Okay, that is eye-opening there! So thank you!
I think archer are always scavenging arrows off the ground to be able to continue shooting afew hours into battle
Also middle ages where not a video game that locks a part of the skill tree when taking another branch, bows and crossbows coexisted in all countries
The main difference was that a crossbow was pre-loaded.
A crossbowman could hold with his weapon loaded for minutes at a time waiting for a target of opportunity but a longbowman could only hold for a few seconds
So a man with a crossbow could be near the front line and instantly fire a bolt through a gap in the shields or someone peering around a barricade.
A Longbowman though could be a hundred feet back lobbing a large number of arrows over the front line and waiting for the law of averages to get a hit.
A good analogy is the difference between Artillery and a Tank.
Bannerlord could actually be a good game for displaying some of the practicalities of either weapon. In the multiplayer, the way you use the bow and crossbow are completely different. The bow is harder to aim with because of the delay you inevitably have to deal with when drawing the bow before you can shoot and you can only draw the weapon for so long before getting tired. With a crossbow, while taking longer to span, there is no limit to how long you can aim and choose your targets.
It is a fact that both weapons had strength's over the other.
The longbow has a much greater trajectory range than the crossbow. According to my owners manual the crossbow has a straight trajectory range of 60 yds & a 45 angle degree range of 120 yds. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica the longbow has a straight trajectory range of 200 yds & a 45 angle degree range of 400 yds.
Having handled both weapons I would rather defend a castle with a crossbow rather than a longbow. Shooting a crossbow out of a castle window would be rather simple whereas that would be complicated with a longbow. I can also see the point of how the crossbow would be more simple defending castle walls.
The training time is definitely an example of an advantage the crossbow has over the longbow. The English army recruited boys for longbowmen. They were trained for 10 years before they were allowed to fight.
I use to do living history for the National Park Service. { in the USA} I was trained to use 16th century weapons. My crossbow training involved 30 minutes of training for 5 days. After that I was quite the marksman.
Both weapons have their dangers.
When I was a Park Ranger I was forbidden to cock a crossbow without a tool. The dangers of disobedience could be broken or lost fingers or even a hernia.
Longbow men {if they lived long enough} developed scoliosis. I don't know what chiropractics or massage therapy was like in those days but the question makes me cringe.
Yep, archery and especially longbows require a fuckton of strength and control to wield well, whereas a crossbow needs far less. Not sure how it compares to a short bow but the crossbow likely would've been preferable for the same reason the gun was, it was just easier to give to someone and have it be effective in battle
@@Jiub_SN You are right. They were the strongest bows of that time. Both bows were unique in their ability to penetrate armour.Crossbows, longbows, Scottish & Swiss pikes put the knight back into history. They gave dominance on the battlefield back to infantry.
3:16 Humans have made decisions by paying pros and cons for a very long time.
You may question how much direct influence a monarch had on the equipment of his troops. But certain people, be it knights of generals, definitely spent a lot of time discussing the pros and cons of equipment and their related tactics.
In Portugal there was the battle of Aljubarrota (1385) in which Portugual had both "frecheiros" (Crossbowmen for the most part) and less numerous English longbowmen both are mentioned in chronicles but the stars are the longbows , they seem to have been considered more effective.
Counter point: remember English are very biased. Just like Samurai with their Katanas. Favorability can blind.
@@FaytVanguard Not to mention that a crossbow is way easier to aim than a bow.
In sone towns in Italy there are still traditional crossbow competitions held every year.
Obviously the correct answer is long crossbow. Or cross longbow. Thanks for the great content bro. You always kill it with your top quality work.
"Longbow or Crossbow?"
"Arquebus"
"organ gun"
I think the question of cost is important, but it is difficult to assess accurately. Crossbows have a higher initial investment cost than a bow, but the initial training cost for an archer will be much higher, especially when you need to replace them. There are several factors that favour the crossbow in a siege, beyond the "sniper" role. Sieges were more common than field battles. A fortified position, like a castle, was an excellent way of projecting power over an area since it could contain mounted troops that could range out to collect tributes and taxes and dispense justice. It also meant a nice retreat for them in case of revolt or outside enemies. A castellan that could tax the surrounding countryside would be in a better position to invest in crossbows than any peasant militia. If the mounted troops of the castle were besieged, an armoury filled with crossbows would provide them with easy to use ranged weapons. These weapons could be placed spanned and ready to load with a bolt at key positions in case of an alarm. It would be much easier to coordinate volleys on specific targets, such as a team rushing to the walls with siege ladders for an escalade. Even non-combatant personnel could be trained to help in the reloading process, and even children could help in resetting and clearing the crannequin pulley ropes to make them ready for reuse.
Archer practice of the long bow was like cricket and foot ball games on weekends. So the english practiced from a very young age.
Plus each shire had to supply a regulate number of arrows to the king or local baron.
10:26 you accidentally stumbled on the real difference. Crossbows are direct fire weapons; bows are indirect and direct. Interestingly Total War: Medieval II helps support this argument, as the game is a light simulation if you use crossbows in an open field, you will find that the back ranks of the unit kind of bug out trying to shoot, and they tend to shoot straight up into the air rather than in a flat arc. This greatly diminishes their effectiveness in game. Conversely a unit of archers will fire normally until the enemy is upon them. However, if you place the crossbowmen on an incline facing the enemy the whole unit gets a nice flat shot at the enemy resulting in a massive increase in effectiveness. On a similar point, archers can be hidden on the OTHER side of the hill (if it is small) because they can just shoot over it. Archers were usually drilled to fire in volleys in a general direction and so they were capable of shooting at enemies they could not see.
The other thing to remember is that battle deaths where very light in these periods, neither crossbows nor bows where effective killers, but both are excellent at wounding. Wounding an enemy is actually better than killing them, because someone has to look after the wounded soldier, and it places additional strain on the enemy's logistics. The goal of all these battles was never to kill all the enemy troops but to cause a route.
Finally, the real advantage of archers in a field battle is maneuverability. Archer's need less stuff than Crossbowmen, especially if we are talking about Italians or French crossbows which in a field battle would almost always try to use a Pavis. In Agincourt English Longbows actually rode their horses up the wooded flanks of the battle and shot at the French from inside the wooded area. A unit of crossbows would struggle to be as effective in this scenario.
>Wounding an enemy is actually better than killing them, because someone has to look after the wounded soldier
though in the heat of the battle, with immense psychological stress of being shot at by enemy missiles, and quite possibly feeling hatred against the opposing force for any personal or tribal reason, it is my personal opinion that nearly no one ever deliberately only wounded hostile fighters while restricting themselves from killing
>The goal of all these battles was never to kill all the enemy troops but to cause a route.
some what, killing all enemy troops would have been a near impossible task in the larger battles anyways (in smaller skirmishes - that may only consist of a few ten to a hundred or so fighters on both sides - that were many times more common than the big battles we so often hear of, total annihilation of one side's fighters would have been possible and maybe even occurring at relatively high rates), but if it was possible and they couldnt take prisoners for ransom they would have absolutely done it or tried to at least, as in the case of Agincourt.
attempts at romanticizing conflict and sugarcoating the real deadliness of it I believe to be a terrible idea, whether you are pro or anti warfare you have to realize that it was an immensely brutal affair, fought by lines of overexcited and often nervous men effectively drugged up on adrenaline, sometimes fearful and ready to run away as soon as possible, sometimes awaiting the moment of opportunity to strike and claim a kill for their own glory
I love when this channel makes me rethink something I thought I understood. It usually leaves me realizing I know nothing and to keep learning
Glad it was useful to you. To me it was an incredibly shallow rehash of obvious, and commonly cited points, with little effort to go beyond that.
Alright! The great debate discussed on a Sunday morning. It's gonna be a good day!