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Guess
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Topic: when did muskets fully replace the Bow in Europe? Posted: 02-Apr-2008 at 20:43 |
I think some cannon or muskets were used at Poitiers. When did cannon and muskets replace the bow?
Would the brittish have been better off keeping skilled Brittish Longbow men alongside the less skilled musketeers? My understanding is that the long bow was superior to the musket for centuries. However, it required alot more skill to use? Couldn't they have continued to train longbowmen and then use unskilled soldiers as musketeers?
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Paul
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Posted: 02-Apr-2008 at 21:17 |
There was a unit of Longbowmen in the English Civil War 1640's.
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Al Jassas
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Posted: 02-Apr-2008 at 21:40 |
Bows were used I think till the war of Spanish succession when artillary, muskets, pistol and other arms replaced them as being more effective.
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Zagros
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Posted: 02-Apr-2008 at 21:41 |
The last time that the longbow is thought to have been instrumental in the outcome of a battle is as far as I know at the battle of Flodden Field (1513).
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pikeshot1600
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Posted: 02-Apr-2008 at 22:57 |
Originally posted by Al Jassas
Bows were used I think till the war of Spanish succession when artillary, muskets, pistol and other arms replaced them as being more effective.
Al-Jassas |
Paul may be referring to the "double armed man" of the civic militia c. 1630s (still trayned bandes?). The official policy on the bow had pretty much killed it in the 1590s. Certainly all the English and Scots soldiers who had served in the Netherlands at least since the 1580s could see that firepower was "where it was at."
By the New Model Army, mid-late 1640s, it was a relic in England. On the Continent, it had already been a relic for a century (crossbows).
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Paul
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Posted: 02-Apr-2008 at 23:20 |
Actually I was refering to the Kilpoint Archers. But the trained bands used them too.
It's also worth remembering the British Army considered reintroducing the Longbow during the Napoleonic Wars.
Edited by Paul - 02-Apr-2008 at 23:23
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 06:17 |
They were calls to reintoduce them all the way until the arrival of breech loading rifles. The problem, you need years to train a longbowman, it takes a few months to achieve a good level on a musket, there was no way the Brits could train 150,000 longbow men.
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Paul
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 09:13 |
A few months to train a musketeer? It takes half a day to train a longbowman.
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 09:37 |
Paul might I suggest taking a longbow and then lanuching a quiver full of arrows at 6 shots a minute at a target at 300 yards. If you don't die of exhaustion please report back on the results, how many hits, never mind that, how many shots even cleared 150 yards. A longbow string has a tension of 80 pounds or more when fully streched. Longbow men had biceps that even Arnies would admire. It takes years be a effective longbowman, not half a day.
I can teach someone in a minute how to fire a tank gun, (**please push that button**), but it would be years before I can send him to battle.
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Paul
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 10:06 |
I take it you've never shot one then. You assessment is on hypothesis alone. I have shot quivers full of the things. However you usage assessment is wrong. Correctly..........
...... Horses gallop 5-7 metres per second. That means 150m away you get 4 shots. You set up a target area 150m away, 100 metres away, 50, metres away and point blank.
The target area will be a huge mass of knights, but with a couple of hours practice you should be able to land an arrow easily within a 3 metres of a small target at each location. This experiment has been conducted more than once, with groups of people who have never picked up a longbow before.
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Al Jassas
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 11:08 |
I think that there is an economic reason for switching to muskets. Other than training, demand for wood was at its greatest during those day to build ocean going vessles, manufacturing paper, building and other more profitable wood using industries. Also, most of England's and Europe's great oak forests were dwindiling fast during those days. Muskets however used metal which was becoming cheaper and cheaper as more and more iron mines are found especially during the 15-16th centuries. Wood was also used to make gun powder which was used extensively. Another reason might be military. Not all horses were trained to withstand the emmense explosive noise of the muskets and the flash was more hurtful than the balls. This was one of the main reasons for Baburs victory at Panipat.
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Paul
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 11:43 |
You are right. By the 14th century virtually all the Yew trees in Britain had been cut down to make Longbow. Most in the hundred years war were made with imported Yew. By the end of the 18th century Britain had began to realise it had the beginnings of a wood crises, the forests were dwindling from naval production.
To make an archer there are 5 components.
A trained man
A Bow Maker
Wood
Arrows
Effectiveness
Arrows are not like musket balls and hard to produce, you also need a skilled fletcher and blacksmith. It's a slow to produce, bulky, resource heavy projectile.
Making a Longbow is a lifetime skill and after the medieval era the skill was lost.
Wood for arrows is plentiful, but were would the Yew come from?
Effectiveness. The Musket had replaced the Longbow, so had proven more effective.
Trained men. A raw recruit enlists prior to Henry V's invasion. In the weeks before the invasion, he joins the ranks of experienced archers and trains beside them daily. Months later by Agincourt he's a veteran.
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Tar Szernd
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 15:32 |
Leipzig, 1813 Oktober. Bashkirian and kalmk mounted archers in the russian army. I 've heard from a german weapon-expert that most of the injuries in the french imperial guard were caused by arrows.
Edited by Tar Szernd - 03-Apr-2008 at 15:32
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Cryptic
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 15:37 |
In addition to the very "recesource heavy" nature of longbow archery, following the victories of the peasant archers against armoured French knights, British knights became concerned that Welsh peasants could use the bows on them as well.
Unwilling to face the "social equilizer", British knights discouraged peasants from developing the archery skill. This involved ending the custom where land lords exempted peasant archers from labor during their continual practice sessions and also subsidized the cost of their equipment. The number of skilled archers then plummeted quickly.
Originally posted by Tar Szernd
Leipzig, 1813 Oktober. Bashkirian and kalmk mounted archers in the russian army. I 've heard from a german weapon-expert that most of the injuries in the french imperial guard were caused by arrows. |
Wow, that is an example of a very late usage. I wonder when Chinese Armies ended the large scale use of the bow. I have seen paintings suggesting that bows lasted there until the 1860s.
Edited by Cryptic - 03-Apr-2008 at 15:51
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Temujin
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Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 22:25 |
Mongol cavalry had it as late as the Boxer rebellion.
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Cryptic
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Posted: 04-Apr-2008 at 19:42 |
^Large scale use of bows in the 1890s is amazing.
In fairness to guns, those archers were probably not facing opponents with advanced weapons. Even still, I think that skilled archers could out perform average marksmen using average guns until the development of the rifled bore (1860s).
Originally posted by Paul
you should be able to land an arrow easily within a 3 metres of a small target at each location. |
I agree with Sparten. The totality of the historical record from many cultures clearly states that there is far more to skilled archery(especially mounted or longbow) than a few days practice.
The sling could have made a comeback against unarmoured Napoleonic formations as well. But the sling has the same problem as skilled archery. It itakes years of practice for a slinger to be able to use the weapon to its full potential.
Edited by Cryptic - 04-Apr-2008 at 23:09
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Paul
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Posted: 04-Apr-2008 at 20:20 |
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Cryptic
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Posted: 04-Apr-2008 at 23:44 |
^
I cant view it because my antique computer will not open fancy features like video. Sparten, have you played it? What do you think?
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Paul
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Posted: 05-Apr-2008 at 01:27 |
Basically it's a history show where a guy gets some people who have never fired a longbow and teaches them to shoot in two days.
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Omar al Hashim
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Posted: 05-Apr-2008 at 09:54 |
The video won't work for me either.
I have been using bows on an off for much of my teenage years, I seriously don't think you could teach an ordinary person to use a modern bow properly in just a couple of days. If you were just aiming at a mass formation it may be easier, but if you actually intend on hitting a target over a large range its a different story.
A longbow, which has a much larger draw, and none of the modern aids, would be much harder. Excavation of medieval longbowmen show that they had much bigger and more developed shoulder bones. I don't think there would be many people alive now who would be strong enough to use a longbow as effectively as a medieval man.
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