Crossbows vs. Longbows

[Gregstrom]

Can some friendly admin re-title this "The thread that WILL NOT DIE", please?

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

Can some friendly admin re-title this "The thread that WILL NOT DIE", please?

This is a serious discussion, and the outcome will affect how crossbow/longbow based wargames are developed all over the world. FFS show some respect for the effort and time people put into this very important subject.

Speaking of that, how about we start a mac vs PC thread?

[Gregstrom]

Sorry Fantomen, I hadn't realised how C3R34L!!!!11111!!11!1 the discussion was.

[Fantomen]

Thanks for your understanding Greg.

@Lizardo: In order to relate the issue to dom3, assuming a bone/cherrywood ethiopian recurved composite shortbow, how would a vine arrow affect velocity and penetration. That spell always struck me as slightly out of touch with proper aerodynamics.

[Eximius Sus]

That's just BS fantomen. You are confusing the poor noob. It's all about the input energy.

[HoneyBadger]

Crossbows were frowned upon as not being the weapon of a Christian gentleman (meaning that it was perfectly OK to skewer a Muslim with one, but quite unchivalrous and rude to knock a proper knight off his noble steed with a crossbow bolt, especially since peasants could do so behind a bush. Peasants, after all, were made for sucking.)

I suspect that infamy had something to do with the rise of gunpowder, which fell under the very popular "knocks over castles" clause.

It's Rule of Cool, for lack of a better term.

Longbows remained quite popular, even after the introduction of gunpowder. Their decline had quite a bit to do with the fact that all the yew trees that made the best bows, had already been harvested. Mature yew trees became remarkably difficult to locate, in the late Middle Ages.

Slings, on the other hand, are insidiously difficult to aim, and fairly dangerous to friendlies, in close quarters. While powerful, they just weren't very good weapons for using in ranks.

[Gregstrom]

Oh dear.

[Lizardo]

Only rejoined children.

It's relevant if the game distinguishes things like crossbows, short bows and longbows. Might be nice if the distinctions had some basis in the actual products.

The vine effect occurs on impact I assume thus it is irrelevant to aerodynamics or lack there of.

Crossbows really aren't that great except that you can have them cocked and ready and they are easy to aim and fire. They're also a lot easier to make than a good bow.

Mods could always lock the topic if it serves no useful purpose.

[HoneyBadger]

Crossbows aren't great...compared to a Glock 9, AK, or assault shotgun. Compared to a 14th century hand-cannon, they're spiffy.

They're still great for hunting, superior in some ways to guns. Infact, a lot of states only allow crossbow-hunting for disabled hunters who can't easily use a gun.

Matchlocks, wheel-locks, and their predecessors had the unhappy tendancy to messily explode in the hands of their intended firers, among their many drawbacks. It was great for knights and nobles to give them to peasants (peasants are made for sucking) and then ride off to fight from horseback, because there was no way in hell a peasant could afford to mass-produce quality guns or quality powder, back then. Coupled with their inaccuracy, and the need for highly trained, and hideously expensive, special warhorses (which themselves took decades and decades to develope) to merge guns with calvalry (the only way low class gunfighters could hope to outmaneuvar landed chivalry on the battlefield), guns were reasonably safe to put in the hands of the common mass.

If crossbows had recieved the same level of technological attention guns have for centuries, it's reasonable to suppose they'd operate at a much, much higher level than they currently do--and possibly much closer to the guns we have today.

At the time gunpowder became weaponized, crossbows and ballistae were the most advanced ranged weapons on the battlefield (the hand version of the trebuchet-pretty much the omega catapult-was basically a sling, afterall...). A seige arbalest could be fired accurately, by a single soldier with modest training, at up to 900 meters, every 30 seconds, and deliver 5000 pounds of force. That's not nothing. Consider that that could be done from behind a large, heavy shield, and that crossbows could atleast be fired from a horse, without much special training from the horse. Crossbows and ballistae could also be stacked together, creating 2 and 3 shot versions, and repeating crossbow technology had existed for centuries before guns were ever invented.

The problem with crossbows was that they were too dangerous, and too easily produced and employed.

[RadicalTurnip]

Except crossbows aren't made of cherry.

And their cross-section is a dodecahedron, so therefore they are inferior weapons.