Why did people adopt guns when bows are superior in almost every way?

why did people adopt guns when bows are superior in almost every way?

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guns are scary

Guns are easier to use

Never seen a bow reach out and touch someone over a mile away.

Bow takes too long to fire an arrow.

Come and fight me and we'll figure it out.

Lets examine this with an example from history.

While bows could be possibly more accurate at longer ranges and really fuck someone up at a short range

the amount of training you need to effectively use a bow means if you had a mass levy of peasants you had to suddenly conscript for war as your main army, only the people who had been training with a bow for combat for most of their lives would be even near halfway effective to actually use in a battle.

Know those comedic shots where all the bad guys constantly miss the villain? Thats what every battle would be like with peasents shitty with bows or who had never used one in their lives because they were farmers who couldnt even poach their own meat.

The invention of guns negated this. You still had to be trained a bit, but by and large, anyone could fire a gun, have the arm strength to fire a gun, and out goes all the years of practice necessary to gage the proper distance and aim for a bow.

Nobunaga knew this, and his incorporation of guns suddenly gave a rather fresh levy army equal footing with archers who had spent their lives trying to perfect the craft.

A bow may be better if you're better trained with it,

but a gun is superior to a newbie in how comparitivly easier it is to adopt.

This has been said a million times before, a gun is just point and shoot with minimum training.

With a bow you need to be a master for trying to hit anything past 60 metres

Ease of training for the first few iterations. It's also why crossbows came to dominate the longbow.

Now there's just no comparison. Handguns are smaller, requiring one hand. Any .50 cal can literally blow your head off from a mile away. Do you really want to think about even the shittiest of machine guns in medieval times?

Rifle-caliber bullets have much more of a chance to kill things outright. One man can't lay down suppressing fire with a bow. Try rucking 500 arrows around. Etc. etc. why am I replying to this

Guns are easy to use and require less training. A good archer has to be very strong and well trained.
Guns came with the psychological factor too. Imagine how scary it would be if you were a drafted peasant getting marched into battle against guys wielding strange weapons that spat fire and death.

>Do you really want to think about even the shittiest of machine guns in medieval times?
FUND IT

Guns have a longer range, are easier to use, and they make a terrifying thunderous noise and flash and they spit smoke like a handheld dragon

Imagine being some conscript marching to square up with a block of enemy troops, only to have your ears shatter, your eyes dazzled, and see half of your comrades dropped like marionettes with their strings cut. Not only that, but now there's a foul smell in the air and your enemy is concealed by smoke like they were from hell itself. Fuck that shit, guns must have been absolutely horrifying to your average footsoldier

>bows are superior in almost every way?

Said the Native Americans.

The Native Americans would pretty much do anything to get guns though.
Niggas loved 'em some Winchester lever actions, so much so that the federal gubbment banned the sale of firearms to certain bands.

Because getting good at archery takes a ton of time and constant practice and no one really wants to do that shit when they can just pull a trigger.

Benjamin Franklin actually argued that the American military should pick up the Longbow because it could still be superior to gunpowder weapons into the 18th century.

Contrary to popular belief, a single arrow will rarely kill/seriously injure someone, especially over long distance, let alone someone wearing armor. It would have to cut an artery or hit the neck/face to kill someone. A bullet will fuck you up no matter what armor you're wearing (aside from bullet proof vests) and will almost certainly put you out of action if it doesn't kill you.
>inb4 agincourt
literally took 5000 archers firing 20,000 arrows to even make a dent, and even then the victory was due to the mud.

Guy with a bow and arrows takes 30 seconds to aim and pull back a stick with a metal tip- more subject to wind and less deadly because the stick plugs half the entry wound. Extremely unlikely to have an exit wound due to less force and a feathered tip.

Shoot bowman with gun. Will die if not treated, can annihilate vital organs beyond repair and bleeding out will occur faster than with a bow and arrow.

gun control strikes again

every single arrow is handmade and takes a lot of time and material to make. lead balls and gunpowder don't.

>every single arrow is handmade and takes a lot of time and material to make. lead balls and gunpowder don't.
No.

While he argued it crudely, I think he had a very general idea of what made gunpowder so popular.

>Excess labor for recruits
>Low training costs for gunpowder weapons
>High lethality
>High degree of industrialization for production
>Supply infrastructure in place to maintain regular resupply and supply chain management
>Prior prevalence of cavalry means effective anti-cavalry infantry becomes popular

this a 50 gram arrow going 50 m/s has 62.5 joules of energy

a 30 gram musket ball going 250 m/s has 937.5 joules of energy

It goes straight through armor and most portable shields at close range. I am sure the "archers need a lot of training" and "muskets are scary and smokey" memes are factors, however overwhelmingly it is this fact.

Guns may be more expensive to produce then bows but it is cheaper and faster to train a musket militia then it is longbowmen.

Is it the 13 Century again? Ask the Mongols.

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yes

You can't turn a bow into a spear by putting a knife on it.

THIS.
Any imbecile can shoot a gun. For bows you have to train your soldiers from a young age (basically be england),a nd accept they won't be able to do it long, because of the stress it puts on their bones.

Are they?
Weren't early guns prone to exploding? Seems like you might need a specialized soldier.
Plus gun soldiers were pretty drilled IIRC.

Bows were shit compared to guns.