Why use crossbowmen over archers?

why waste time training peasants to be good bowmen when you could just give them a crossbow and have them be just as effective?

It takes years to create a competent archer, but only a few days to create a competent crossbowman

crossbowmen don't need any training, and hardly any strength

just point and shoot

Maybe if they didn't outlaw the Longbow in everywhere but England they could field more archers.

>more range

you're retarded

I want to use crossbow in D&D because I think they look awesome with clerics, but it takes longer to reload...

Reminder that crossbowmen were highly paid career mercenaries.
Veeky Forums is a pile of garbage as usual.

Because its is easier and cheaper to hire a company of trained and experienced crossbowmen than it is to pull your peasant men off their farms.

armor piercing would be the best advantage
then being easier to train than a bowmen and wasting less bolts would also be a good pro

obviously they had a very slow rate of fire but in a siege they would be pretty useful or even in open battle if properly protected

>outlaw the Longbow
wut
care to elaborate?

they needed to be stronger than a bowmen to pull the string if they didn't have the cog mechanism that wasn't available in the early models

where was this subject even approached in this thread?!

>Easier to train xDDDDDD

This would be the standard shitty idea. It is wrong when you see fact. Why would the King of France pay really expensive Genoese Crossbowmen if they were so "easy to train ?".

Here's the real reason : The Crossbow is superior to the bow.

>B-B-But... Muh longbowmen

Yes, yes, you're right.
Let's say things clearly : In range battles, longbows are superior to crossbows, due to their huge rate of fire. But medieval warfare isn't about range battles. In fact, they're rare, they're the exception. Medieval warfare is mostly siege warfare, and in this case, the crossbow is superior, because you can shoot behind a wall or a pavise and keep shooting out of any harm. Same goes for naval battles. Take the battle of La Rochelle in the XIVth Century and you'll see how a pack of crossbowmen are invincible when protected on a ship, compared to the hapless longbowmen.
Also, crossbows are armor piercing, hence why they continued to be used long after the longbow.

You know what I hate about crossbows?

Because more training = more resources. Which is easier on the economy.

Sherman was more cost effective than the Panther for example.

>Easier to train means you can use more mercenaries and replenish your losses faster
What's wrong with that assumption exactly?

If they were easier to train, then the King of France would have just raised urban militias for his army. It is true by the way, the french army was partly built of militias... But why would you hire those expensive Genoese guys really far away if any peasant could be trained with the crossbow ?
Because it wasn't a easy weapon to use, it wasn't the Colt of the Middle Ages. The crossbow is expensive, it is a fragile tool, it is impracticle to build and only a crossbow guild or corporation (Like the Balistei in italy) could produce them. If the first crossbows could be loaded with your hands, they became progressively more difficult to reload, using a lot of ropes or complex mechanisms. It was also, sometimes, akin to a crew-based arm : You had the shooter (Experienced and constantly trained with it), the valet reloading it, and the guy holding the pavise.

Alright, these are fair points.

Well, to be fair, I'm exagerating a bit. The crossbow wasn't an incredibly rare weapon that required 20 years of daily practice to master. It was certainly, indeed, much easier to use than the Longbow, where at least 5 years of experience were needed to properly use one. But still. The crossbow wasn't a popular weapon used by peasants, contrarly to what most people like to think. It was like a medieval sniper rifle if you wish to compare : Not a complicated weapon to use, but you would still rather hire people who are highly trained to use it.
It was the reason that the French, in the early XIVth Century, loved to hire Genoeses : Because they were sailors (And the XBow is superior in naval warfare), there were plenty of people from Genoa who knew perfectly how to care and use their crossbow in the heat of battle.

Crossbow bolts can punch through plate because they are several times as heavy and have more kinetic energy. Arrows have trouble with full plate.

I'll admit, my knowledge of medieval soldiery is, well, limited. But weren't Genoese well decked out as well, adding to their costs?

Easier isn't easy. Being a competent archer in a battle setting is incredibly difficult, whereas you can become a competent crossbowman with a few years' training.

Genoa is a city of sailors, and many sailors serving on the galleys had to use a crossbow. In naval warfare, the crossbow is much superior to any bow due to geometry : You shoot directly at the ship in front of you, and it's easy to be protected from flying arrows. Anyhow, it's not hard to understand the motivation from the French King to hire them : Genoa was full of trained marksmen, who came with their own valets, their pavise, their brigandine armors and their shortswords. They were known as loyal troops, competent and all.

Sadly, they were sacrificed at the battle of Crécy, where they had to fight without their pavise. And there you see how the crossbow is much inferior to the longbows in ranged battles... After this, the French had to rely on independent Great Companies to have ranged soldiers (Both longbows and crossbows), Great Companies who unforunately would go ravaging the countryside once their pay was docked. Until 1445 when Charles VII ordered the creation of the "franch-archers" corpse, men recruited in local parishes to be regulary trained in the usage of either longbows or crossbows.

Oh good to know, thanks for the info bud.

youtube.com/watch?v=gvTymyb1bBE

crossbows have an advantage over bows in sieges because you can hold and aim them indefinetly and snipe people off (or from) walls.

Why people even bothered with plate?

They were much more powerful than most bows. For example, you'd need an archer built like a brick shithouse with a longbow and bodkin arrows and even then it'd be unlikely to get through plate armour, whereas a crossbow is much more likely to get through plate armour because it's more powerful

Probably because the other user is exagerating. Crossbow bolts cant melt steel plates.

stfu lol

edward street represent

>They were much more powerful than most bows.
Not necessarily, if we speak of warbows and especially english longbows. There are many types of bows and crossbows anyway.

This video is great to explain the differences. m.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiXHImU4Yk

the moral of story still remains that it takes a special kind of man and a large amount of training to be able to have the same consistency of armour-piercing that any feudal peasant levy with a crossbow and a week's worth of training would have

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But the peasant isnt very likely to have a crossbow, although he can always be given one during a siege. Many castles apparently stored a few crossbows and bolts.

the peasant isn't likely to have a crossbow but i'd imagine his liege lord would

I love being able to kill Men at Arms in Chivalry with one shot with the heavy xbow.

and the thing is, I'm consistent in my shots.

All the advantages of a crossbow:

1. Easier to train, you can reach proficiency with it in about an hour (though that's not to say there weren't professionals like the Genoese)

2. Requires very little physical strength and therefore isn't as exhausting as using a handbow.

3. You can keep up tension forever, making it easy to use in a siege (both offensively and defensively). You can keep your crossbow at the ready and wait for the enemy to poke out his head.

4. Penetrative power. A crossbow was the only ranged weapon with a chance (though not guarantee) to puncture plate armor at close distances.

5. Pavisses. Often overlooked, but you can have a bowman that fires about 18 shots per minute and is entirely defenseless, or one that fires 3 shots per minute but is safely hidden behind a shield.

>M-Muh Agincourt though
Had little to do with longbows and more with horrible leadership and bad weather. Note that it's famous because of how many French knights were captured. You generally don't capture knights that have been pierced by dozens of arrows.

>M-Muh Crecy muhfugga
Again, bad leadership. The Genoese crossbowmen lost out against the longbows because they were forced onto the field rapidly, without their pavises. Without proper protection they couldn't sustain a prolonged ranged encounter and retreated. The French didn't get what they paid for so they trampled their mecernaries.

A lot of shit leadership in the early stages of the war. I wonder if that has anything to do with the French king being LITERALLY INSANE. Nah, that can't be...

>outlaw the Longbow
U fookin' wot m8? You know the Longbow only originated in Wales, right? And the English copied it because they're right next to Wales? And the rest of Europe simply didn't care to switch because it would be too expensive and require training of freeman peasants to be obligated by law.

Muslims hated them.

1. Crossbows aren't guaranted to puncture plate, that mostly happens at close range. Crossbow bolts lose kinetic energy over longer ranges.

2. Let's say a crossbow punctures plate. Behind that plate is chainmail, which is pretty good at catching arrows and crossbow bolts. Behind that is gambeson, or very thick padded cloth that gives decent protection against cuts and stabs. Behind that is skin. Behind THAT the muscles, organs and all the other squishy things you want to hit.

Just penetrating the plate isn't enough to kill, or even wound someone. You need to get past two other layers of armor and THEN you need to pierce deep enough to make the result more than a flesh wound. This is why you need to be pretty close to actually kill a knight, usually so close that whoever fired that crossbow bolt is fucked anyway because the guy behind you will slap his shit.

There's a reason why plate armor was invented after the crossbow, and why it persisted long after the crossbow became outdated. If it really was a plate trivializer, people would've most likely abandoned armor altogether (as they did in the later stages of the gunpowder era, with the exception of cuirassiers).

Why did anyone bother to use bows, especially when the Romans were going around with crossbows

1. Easier to train
>"Here, put this end on the ground, pull back (crank etc for goats foot or w/e), put the bolt in, aim, shoot."
Don't have to be as strong as you use your back and both hands to draw the string back if not using a goats foot or windlass.
2. Can hold aim for longer (useful for sieges especially)
You can hold a crossbow aimed at a particular point on a rampart etc indefinitely, as compared to a war bow which can't be held for longer than a few seconds at most.
3. Much more powerful at close range (but much less so over distance)
A crossbow fires a much smaller and lighter bolt as compared to a longbow, but can reach much higher poundages (easily 600 pounds compared to a bows ~120) which results in a higher initial force applied to target, but that force drops off quickly due to air resistance and lower inertia over distance.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head

>2. Let's say a crossbow punctures plate. Behind that plate is chainmail
no

Kek

>the Romans were going around with crossbows

What?

...

The Romans, hell even the ancient Greeks, used crossbows in limited amounts. It's not a difficult concept to invent when you have bows, but i dont know why they didnt take off in popularity until the high medieval period when as posters in this thread claim it was so superior to the bow

Not the guy you were talkin to but

It is easier to find someone strong enough to wield a weak (but still effective) crossbow than it is to find one strong enough to wield an effective longbow (would have to be over 80 pounds to penetrate gambeson/mail).
That's not to say Genoese crossbowmen were easy to train, they were highly proficient at there craft and, if I'm not mistaken, were just as good with other hand weapons if necessary, not to mention their armor.
Yes, the very complex windlasses and others were extremely hard to manufacture, but a small, powerful, simple crossbow, drawn by hand or with goats foot can be made in the average castle blacksmith's.

Breh, that's a gastraphetes. Gastraphetes are shit m8.

A Greek "Gastraphetes" (Belly Riser) Crossbowman

No, that's not a Gastraphetes, it's a Roman crossbow from well after ancient Greece, around 350AD perhaps.

Stop talking shite, it's a god dam crossbow.

The Chinese also famously used crossbows extensively during the warring states and han empire periods, so it probably travelled down the silk road too.

I'm pretty sure longbows shoot straight through armour too m8.

>The power of the crossbow, in one way, was considerably more than the longbow’s. It could “draw” about 750 pounds, compared with the longbow’s 70–150 pounds, but its released energy was comparatively inefficient because the span was short and its tips, whose whiplash movement turned stored energy into bolt speed and range, moved through a much shorter trajectory than the long and powerful expanse of the longbow’s. Also, the longbow’s arrow was heavier than a quarrel, which gave it greater penetrative power over a greater distance. To match the longbow’s lethality, the crossbow would have had to be considerably larger, which would have made it impossibly unwieldy. Even in its comparatively light form it already suffered from a lengthy loading procedure that left the crossbowman vulnerable.

>These characteristics molded the tactical use of both types of bow. The crossbow tended to be deployed in relatively close action where the flat trajectory would have a potentially devastating effect (the problem was, of course, that the closer the crossbowman was to the action, the greater his chances of being ridden down or shot down during the relatively lengthy periods of reloading). The longbow, on the other hand, tended to be used at longer distance in arcing trajectories where its high speed of reloading (about twelve shafts per minute, compared with perhaps three per minute for the crossbow—about the same rate as a black-powder musket) could inflict a storm of harm on the enemy.

Am interested. Romans had crossbowmen in limited numbers to my understanding. Why did the crossbow only increase in use in the high medieval period?

spamming those dudes in age of mythology was fuckin cash

That is what i dont understand. Perhaps it was a size issue, a crossbow is much bulkier to carry about than a bow. Archers in antiquity didnt originate from professional militarys, the professional forces always adopted some sort of heavy infantry like the phalanx or legions, the archers came from auxiliary people who were naturally archers as their way of life. Perhaps the crossbow needs a higher level of state organisation to get widespread use, which is why we see it appear in the Chinese states very early, but not the romans or greeks as they simply recruited foreigners for the role, but in medieval states, we see them going for crossbows.

The crossbow seems very linked to a more organised state that also focuses on ranged warfare. If one of these points is missing you find bows.

...

Yes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour
>In armoured techniques taught in the German school of swordsmanship, the attacker concentrates on these "weak spots", resulting in a fighting style very different from unarmoured sword-fighting. Because of this weakness most warriors wore a mail shirt (haubergeon or hauberk) beneath their plate armour (or coat-of-plates). Later, full mail shirts were replaced with mail patches, called gussets, sewn onto a gambeson or arming jacket.

Depending on the exact period, hauberks could be worn directly under the plate.

Obscure fact: crossbows saw some use in Central Africa

>"Among the crowd today I saw men armed with crossbows, from which are shot either iron-headed arrows, or the little insignificant looking but really most deadly, poison-tipped arrows. These are only slender harmless reeds, a foot long, whose sharpened ends are dipped into a deadly vegetable poison, which these people know how to make. The arrows are so light that they would blow away if they were simply laid in the groove of the bow. To prevent this they use a kind of sticky gum, a lump of which is kept on the underside of the bow, and with which a small spot in the groove is lightly rubbed. The handle of the bow is ingeniously split, and by a little peg, which acts as a trigger, the bow-string is disengaged, and, as the spring is very strong, sends the arrow to a great distance, and light as it is, with great force. But the merest puncture kills inevitably. They are good marksmen with their bows, which require great strength to bend. They have to sit on their haunches, and apply both feet to the middle of the bow, while they pull with all their strength on the string to bend it back."
- Paul du Chaillu, 1861

They're different from East African crossbows, which are inspired by Indian ones, and from West African crossbows, which were inspired by the Portuguese. Central African crossbows seem to have been inspired by the fishing crossbows used by Scandinavian traders.

Not him, but it's generally attributed to an upsurge in siege warfare during the tenth century. There is very little historical record of the Roman crossbows, and the few depictions have to do with hunting, not warfare.

>no
Kek wut
Armor in layers m8
>plate
>mail
>gambeson
>undershirt
>flesh

Ah okay. Castles n shit

Neither one "shoots straight through" but both can penetrate armour under the right conditions.

>The longbow, on the other hand, tended to be used at longer distance in arcing trajectories
Dr Capwell disagrees

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvlZcxNAVY

At about 11 min

In that specific scenario (high Medieval English longbowmen)
Archers throughout history have fired in high arcs because not everyone wears full plate.

He was talking about longbows specifically desu.

But I'm not :)

During the Crusades there are several accounts of Muslims immediately executing captured crossbowmen, something only ever done previously to apostates. At Jacob's Ford most notably.

Take that for what it's worth.

Because they were available and reliable.

That's the one point that everyone so far is missing here. Back then you didn't recruit a bunch of farm boys, equipped them with quality gear, and spent weeks or months training them at Medieval boot camp to roll out professional soldiers like you do today. Instead you went to war with the army you had, supplemented with the army you can buy (or the reverse in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance).

Unless you were England or from Eastern Europe/Asia, your choice in archers tended to be limited to all the foresters and hunters you can call to arms, plus the poorer foot soldiers from the retinue of a knight who couldn't afford to equip and train them as proper man-at-arms. This meant they were notoriously undisciplined, unreliable, and ineffective as soldiers.

Crossbowmen, however, tended to be mercenary companies of urban militia. They were usually from the same hometown, probably trained together, likely fought at sea together before taking up mercenary work, and being from trading cities usually could afford good crossbows. And as mercenaries they came to you already prepared, mobilized, and ready to deploy without having to wait for an uncertain call to muster and individually negotiate thousands of short term contracts with men who didn't have a collective reputation worth the effort.

Footsoldiers were regularly slaughtered in almost any theater of war. They simply were not worth the effort to ransom.

He's not saying longbows have to be fired directly, just that direct trajectories were also used and evidently preferred against heavily armored knights. That doesn't diminish the fact that the longbow at distance remains lethal and was more often employed in such a way.

Saladin took 700 prisoners at Jacob's Ford and only executed the crossbowmen though.

The bowmen and apostates, and again because they were worthless to him, as they've always been to most.

These were Templar troops also, who were also sometimes executed and not ransomed.

This is correct.

Military "training" was almost nonexistent in the middle ages.

>Crossbows are good because any poor faggot can use it.

>Crossbows are really expensive and require special materials.

So who paid for it?

Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics

mega.nz/#!UcQDQbrC!S4FrGQXwU8d66NJOArPYMHpqFH_MSX-cynXzoQhgUFw

kek'd
underrated post

Im assuming that if only the best examples of armor tended to survive then there are little to no examples of punctured plate armor?

>What's wrong with that assumption exactly?
You are resorting to assumptions when facts are available, that's what's wrong.

A crossbow's much easier to use than a longbow.

A longbow you have to be strong enough to pull that sucker back and hold it til you aim and shoot

A crossbow you just have to put your weight into enough to push the string back into the catch mechanism, or use your lever or winch, then you can load it and fire at your leisure.

going into the medieval period body armor got much better. Even types that had been around for a long time like mail improved. Thus 60 pound bows no longer cut it. That in turn means rulers needed skilled wood workers or specialist and high quality wood. The last part is the real issue.

Crossbows are only really production gated by the volume of spring steel you can make.

>they needed to be stronger than a bowmen to pull the string if they didn't have the cog mechanism
no they didn't. even if the bow itself is heavier the muscles you use to pull it are completely different so they're not in any means comparable. any healthy, full grown man can deadlift ~80-100kg but try to do pull-ups with 2 fingers with similar amount of weight. plus even if they didn't have windlasses they did attach pulling hooks to their belts which eases the process significantly.

forgot one thing. the length of the draw. crossbow has it less than half, maybe even close to quarter of a longbow.

Romans and Greeks used missile warfare differently. For them, it is mostly for skirmishing and not a decisive factor in battles, largely because Ancient European missile weapons relied largely on javelins and slings and less than bows because their native bows are shit. Add to the fact that the Hoplite/Roman Legionary/Celtic Warrior in Chainmail were the most heavily armored infantry of the time. However late Rome started fielding missile units resembling the medieval ones, largely due to access to Asian Recurve Composite bows.

Not to mention the Gastraphetes is considered a fucking catapult in greek weaponology. It was used only in sieges and ship battles. Only lightly armed swift moving javelineers, slings, and bowmen were the missile troops in field battles.

In China, it was totally fuck different. Knowhow of making the recurve composite bow due to Central Asian Steppeniggers being neighbors meant that the ancient Chinks already had a powerful type of bow for their missile warfare. It doesnt help that between the Shang Dynasty to the early Warring States, most Chinese soldiers wore leather armor.

This meant 2 things
1) Other Chinese missile weapons like javelins and slings were phased out fuck early.
2) Archers played a decisive role in the Chink battlefield. Not just meme skirmishers.

Contd. OK so why crossbows caught on in China quite early?

We already established that archers played a decisive role in Ancient Chinese battlefields. Like their spear and sword wielding companions, they formed battle lines as opposed to a lose cloud of missile screens like the Romans.

By the Zhou period (1200's-500's AD), the Chinese began to ask themselves this question: how can I raise more missile troops? The answer came from their neighbors down South, primitive non-Chinese hunter gatherers who used a protocrossbow that threw out darts to small birds. The Chinks ran away with the idea and militarized it, giving birth to the military Crossbow sometime between 600s-400s AD

It was dreadfully effective, to the point that they played a central role in Ancient Chinese warfare in tactics resembling Pike & Shot warfare, sans shot.

In addition, they were also effective versus Steppe Nomads, particularly during the Campaigns of the Han Dynasty, were Crossbowmen and other missile troops entrenched themselves in movable fortifications to provide an anchor in the battlefield for their cavalry to fall back to and rearm/regroup versus Nomad Horse Archers.

>Why did anyone bother to use bows
Well, Welsh/English culture had a culture of longbowmen. Freeman archers were obligated by law to spend an hour training with the longbow every sunday after church. Other places in Europe did not have such a cultural practice, and due to a lack of centralization as well as strong local laws and rights no feudal lord was able to enforce such laws and practices. Though the French tried introducing them through the use of Franc-Archers (freeman archers) late in the Hundred Years War, though not to great effect.

It's simply culture. The English and Welsh had a tradition of archery, while the Europeans had not so they favored crossbows.

Depending on where you're from, either the liege lord who levied his peasants or the cities who financed their militias. Longbows weren't exactly cheap either, considering they needed to made from a special kind of yew. Don't quote me on this, but I think that yew was so in demand it went downright extinct in England.

How do you explain Longbowmen forming the lynchpin of Burgundian armies then? Like the thousand recruiting in Artois, further thousand from Flanders etc.

>argely on javelins and slings and less than bows because their native bows are shit.

Actually it was because they had effective countermeasures to bowfire, namely the large shields they used. Javelins were preferred because they hit a lot harder than arrows, and so have a chance to punch mail armor, and being much heavier they also inconvenience the target even if he blocks it in his shield.

Because any dumb peasent with a bit of instruction can use it, like firearms

If shields and armor countered bows and crossbows why even bother with archers and crossbowmen? Seems like some infantrybaby propaganda because they got BTFO too hard as infantry was fucking useless meme.

>If shields and armor countered bows and crossbows why even bother with archers and crossbowmen?
Because full plate was the best of the best. It was borderline impervious and made knights effectively tanks... but most of the army isn't knights. Knights were a small minority. Most soldiers were either professional mercenaries or levies, that often had less than optimal gear. Gear that crossbow bolts and arrows COULD pierce.

Medieval lords simply had neither the money nor the infrastructure to equip every single one of their soldiers with top-of-the-line armor.

>Later, full mail shirts were replaced with mail patches, called gussets, sewn onto a gambeson or arming jacket.
Yes they only wore mail under plate during a specific period before the development of full plate