Why were muskets adopted when crossbows of the time were vastly superior in terms of rate of fire and accuracy?

Early 1600s tops.

Longer in places like China.

Poles and Russians kept their cavalry archers until almost the 1700's.

Russians had kalmyk (native/mongolian) horse archers during napoleons invasion in 1812

Are you both retarded? Muskets/arquebuses are immensely more complicated to reload.

You need a weight inside of this armor because men where WEARING these. If there is a weight of 150 lbs or more inside the fixed armor plate, the energy of the hitting bolt penetrates much more.
The plate is flung away as soon as there is enough power impulse (through the hit of the bolt) over time to push the armor plate away.

Agreed, they are very imperfect tests. I just haven't seen any others.

To be fair, the first test (with helmet) was in favour of crossbow. Helmet was static and had "wall" behind it, and no padding inside. But, the 350lb of draw seems a little too low for crossbow?
Second test with breastplate is meh. And conclusions are outward retarded. Knocking down a guy with crossbow bolt? Who is that Newton guy again?

Please tell us how you think a crossbow is reloaded?

Not him but isn't it just (depending on variant of crossbow) pulling the string back, loading the bolt, and then you're good to go? I know it's usually physically tough to reset the firing mechanism but it doesn't seem that complex. I'd say that reloading a musket is much more complex by virtue of how many steps.

Easier/cheaper to mass produce muskets. Anybody can be trained to fight with one in literally a day. Musket balls will penetrate even the finest of Armour from the period.

Direct hand-drawn crossbows were never weapons of war. They were used only for home defense, hunting, and recreation. A simple gambeson would stop such a bolt.

Goat's foot crossbows lost military relevance long before guns hit the battlefield. With a draw-weight of less than 300 pounds, these crossbows were ineffective against increasingly common armor.

In the late medieval era, military crossbows were overwhelmingly windlass or cranequin drawn. Less powerful crossbows just did not pose a threat even to mass produced munition armor. Once you have to use a windlass, crossbows were not any faster to load than an arquebus, but were considerably less powerful.

300 lb goat's foot crossbow shooting roughly 5 bolts/minute
youtube.com/watch?v=iIkxyjVu9gc

1200lb Windlass crossbow shooting at roughly 2 bolts/minute
youtube.com/watch?v=MMoL_SBD6gw

>Goat's foot crossbows lost military relevance long before guns hit the battlefield. With a draw-weight of less than 300 pounds, these crossbows were ineffective against increasingly common armor.
But youtube video you posted (first one) proves you wrong. He loads 300lb crossbow with ease... while holding it in fucking left hand. 300lb is not the limit.

Bullets are far, far more lethal than any type of bow. There's a reason that even war bow centric societies that had an elite warrior class of archers for thousands of years saw said elites immediately abandon their bows for primitive muskets. Like the Samurai.

because you don't need to be a heavyweight champion to reload a musket unlike crossbows

Just because you have muscular dystrophy, it doesn't automatically make everyone heavyweight champion.

The idea that firearm replaced older missile weapon because they were cheaper and easier to learn might be the case for some regions/periods, but it doesn't really hold true for Tudor England. Laws requring archery practice remained in place throughout the 16th century and govrnment reguations ensured that even a good quality yew longbow remained much less expensive than a mtchlock firearm.
In general the English military was relatively slow to modernize. It wasn't until the 1530s that England started really using guns, and by the time the 1544 invasion of France was launched the bulk of the English army was still made up of traditional county levies armed with bows and billhooks, forcing King Henry VIII to hire expensive foreign mercenaries armed with pikes and arquebuses and to offer increased wages to English soldiers who were willing to take up the new weapons. Accounts from the fighting around Boulogne seem to indicate that the English archers were now being badly "outgunned" by French infantry. According to one Welsh captain, "I never saw Welshmen or Englishmen so bad hearted or so unventuresome as I saw at this time. Not a single one of them would dare to go near where the handguns were shooting at us." Humfrey Barwick, an Englishman who had spent his youth learning archery before being given an arquebus when he joined the army, claimed that "I did never see or hear, of any thing by them don with their long bowes, to any great effect. But many have I seene lye dead in divers skirmishes and incounters [from harquebus and pistol bullets] . . ." From the French side veteran Blaise de Monluc noted that there was a fair amount of respect for the English and their bravery when the conflict began, but after skirmishing with them for a while, he concluded that there was little to fear since the english carried "arms of little reach" compared to the French harquebusiers and they could be made to turn their backs "with as great facility as any Nation that ever I saw".

After the war ended the proportion of firearms to bows in the english army would continue to rise until the longbow was officially abandoned in 1595.
During the last couple decades of the of the 16th century, the subject of longbow vs gun became a pretty hot topic among English military writers and numerous books and pamphlets were published which discuss the subject. Giving us a pretty good idea about the reasons given for the longbow's replacement. Some, such as Sir John Smythe and Thomas Diggs still opposed to giving up what they saw as the traditional English weapon, pointing to classical history how instrumental it was at battles like Crecy and Agincourt. Others, including well known veterans like Sir Roger Williams, Barnabe Rich, and William Garrard, considered the longbow fairly useless except perhaps as a militia weapon or something to be used when not enough firearms were available. The crux of the debate tended to involve on arguing the technical merits of each weapon, with the pro gun side pointing out that a musket could shoot a bullet many times farther than the best archer, muskets could be used more effectively from behind cover, a musket was aimed "by rule" rather than "by guess", bullets caused greater wounds, and even though a bow could shoot more rapidly, a musket could be loaded with hailshot or multiple bullets at once. According to Lois Schwoerer in Gun Culture in Early Modern England the works supporting guns were overall "more numerous and more persuasive."

As fighting in France and the low countries continued, the performance of english archers in the field does not seem to have improved. According to another Englishman, Robert Barret, ." . . the wars are much altered since the fierie weapons first came vp: the Cannon, the Musket, the Caliuer and Pistoll. Although some haue attempted stifly to maintaine the sufficiencie of Bowes, yet daily experience doth and will shew vs the contrarie." Even Smythe noted that archers had developed a very poor reputation among English officers, although he suggested that this was perhaps due to poor command decisions, rather than the the weapon itself.
A common explanation given for this poor performance is that England was suffering from a lack of skilled archers by the end of the 16th century. It is true that one argument often brought by the gun proponents was the declining popularity of archery practice and the fact that there seemed to be fewer good archers available, but it was typically brought up alongside other arguments about the technical superiority of firearms. Barwick's argument, for example, was that after just four months of practice with his arquebus he could shoot better than he could after years of practice with the bow and was on par with the best archers in england. Notably absent, on the other hand, were many treatises which consider the longbow the superior weapon, but argue that it should be abandoned anyways due to the lack of trained men. In fact, Sir John Smythe, who did consider the longbow superior, completely discounted the idea that there were no good archers any more, pointing out that in any period some men are naturally born stronger.

It's worth noting that of the skeletons found aboard the 1545 wreck of the Mary Rose, only 1/5th showed changes consistent with longbow practice from a very young age, yet all the bows had a 100+ lbs draw weight, which should have been more than enough for the late 16th century when relatively little armor was worn. Steven Gunn in "Archery Practice in Early Tudor England" concludes from records of archery accidents that there was some decline, but it seems to have been a fairly slow process over the course of the 16th century.
Keep in mind, that the debate at this point was not over whether muskets should be used, but whether Longbowmen should continue to be employed at all. If the problem was, as Roger Williams claimed, that only a fraction of the archers could make "good strong shoots", then Smythe would have had it that that fraction continued to be employed as archers alongside the musketeers. Yet it was extremists that considered archers completely useless who ultimately proved the most persuasive. And in 1595 the Privy Council decided that all remaining longbowmen should be re-equipped with firearms or lumped in with other unarmed men.

typo, should be "around" rather than less than.

Either way, the point was that goat's foot crossbows were not effective against armor. The short power stroke meant that despite the high draw weight, the energy behind a bolt is not all that much.

> Why were muskets adopted when crossbows of the time were vastly superior in terms of rate of fire and accuracy?

For the same reason they replaced bows.

Musketballs simply do far more damage.

Both arrow and bolt lethality has been exaggerated by movies and video games, musketballs on the other hand, unlike modern bullets, punch into your flesh and blast through it, causing much graver wounds.

There is a good reason why the most elite archers of 16th century Europe, the jannisaries, abandoned their top tier composite bows in favor of italian style arquebuses and later even developed their own.

The people in the 16th century also argued that guns had greater range and accuracy than bows and crossbows.

>The short power stroke meant that despite the high draw weight, the energy behind a bolt is not all that much.
True
>Either way, the point was that goat's foot crossbows were not effective against armor
I agree
>typo, should be "around" rather than less than.
I would be really surprised if one couldn't load crossbow with 1k lb draw weight using goat's foot lever. Leg/back muscles are far stronger than arm muscles.
The original point was, that muskets were easier to load than crossbows, which is bs. Even with windlass it's quite easy thing to do, but with muskets it takes dozens of steps. No one argued that it was quicker, but even so, I doubt than reload of arquebuses was only 30s of work.

training.

muskets are easier and quicker to train. since you just have the men march in a formation and volley fire. then you affix bayonets and become a spearman.

crossbow archers need more training time. they either have to carry a sword/shield or a spear too. else they need dedicated pikemen to defend them.

That wasn't the only factor nor do I think in the transition phase that was a factor. Training men to fire and load their guns in the thick of battle isn't as easy as it sounds.
Plus people did argue about this during the transition phase and the pro-gun lads touted that guns were stronger, had longer effective range, were more accurate since you actually aimed your weapon instead of guessing and the wind didn't fuck up a bullet as bad as an arrow, and other junk.
Crossbows and bows got phased out because they were obsolete weapons, it's that simple.

> You need a weight inside of this armor because men where WEARING these.

Bows and crossbows were only useful against UNarmored horses and supporting troops, even minimal armor was sufficient protection at all but point-blank ranges.

100+lb bow vs padded gambson:
youtube.com/watch?v=CULmGfvYlso

wiy peepoo yoos gunnne instead of bah?

Mass production. You can make an insane number of guns within a short period of time. Japan produced so many guns during the Sengoku Era that at its height there were more guns in Japan than everywhere else in the world combined.

Sorry but the english did shit, the change of crossbows by firearms (arquebus) was made by "the Great Captain" at the battle of Cerignola in 1503, the effect was so overwhelming that changed the military ordinance/composition of all Europe.

Bang-bang shooters sound cooler when fired.

I'm saying it in the context of the question. While not a crossbow the longbow remained in service in England until the late 16th century. The context answers part of OP's questin.

nice

>Genoese internet defense force in this thread

>This again
Bullshit.

That particular crossbow would actually take the same is not a longer time to load and have much less penetrative power

>divers
every. fucking. time. WHY were English always using this fucking word in tudor-era speech? Almost all their writings are peppered with "divers" every conversation

>Japan produced so many guns during the Sengoku Era that at its height there were more guns in Japan than everywhere else in the world combined.
The phrase is "more than any single European country" at the time.

I doubt 1500s-1600s Japan had the same level of production of firearms as the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, or the nearby Chinese. In addition Japs couldn't produce artillery for shit.

>movie/show depicts arrow fire like a machine gun, absolutely mowing down and slaughtering dozens of men in a single volley
Fuck movies for making people think arrows and bolts are guns, battle of the bastards was the most egregious example, fucking ridiculous. Barely anyone at all ever died from a lethal arrow, it’s extremely fucking rare even on unarmored opponents, it just doesn’t deliverer a deadly enough attack unless you hit something vital, the chance of dropping a man with a single arrow is pretty much nonexistent, they were meant to hinder and annoy, to create chaos and to mess with enemy formations, it was never a decisive killer, best you could hope for was that the guy was at least a little bit injured or weakened by the arrow before he gets to your lines but hoping for a kill is wishful thinking, they just fired volleys and Hoped for some injured arms and legs, that’s an archer’s job, not to be literal WW1 machine gun and artillery levels of deadly that creates massive piles of bodies that could only exist in an environment with actual machine guns and artillery.

To be fair they bought like 10 books on the subject and declared themselves experts. It's not unusual that they were inflexible.

>people like this are allowed to post on Veeky Forums

Also why the fuck do people think it's easier to make a gun than a crossbow? Because that's fucking hilarious

>fpbp

Ever seen how a real period time horn crossbow is made?

a better question is why, once firearms made infantry armor obsolete, werent mass archer units put back in use

it cant be - it takes long to train, cause in napoleonic times armies trained and drilled all the time and it realy wouldnt have taken that long to get a few thousand people to learn how to shoot a longbow

It would have made sense, if not for the range.
Early guns counter both armour and bows, as soon as they outrange those, and you need something with a similar effective range to fight back, so again the arquebus is king.

Because the bow was an inaccurate weapon with low lethality and you can't use cover with a bow. Not that it matters in the battlefield as men won't be sharpshooters under those conditions but pretty much any culture that came into contact with guns ditched their bows for them. Even cultures like the Native Americans.

Because crossbows are better and easier, special forces still uses them in some countries

-> -> >Or later historic examples, like how French faced Archers during invasion of Russia
Gee I wonder

How are crossbows better? They were completely abandoned in continental Europe during the 16th century. If they truly were better why didn't anyone keep using them?

On top of this weapon contest in the 16th century show that in test of accuracy the arquebus won. Add it up with the fact that any crossbow with the same amount of force as an arquebus will be a bitch to reload and I just don't see how people can say this.

>100 pavise fire 100 bolts
>10 hit their targets, no one notices the other 90
>10 arquebusiers fire 10 balls
>the entire enemy army notices and shits their pants

Thanks user, interesting read.

>but with muskets it takes dozens of steps.
Oh come on.

>>Because crossbows are better and easier
Crossbows were not better though. They were less accurate and less powerful than early firearms while also being heavier and bulkier. There's a reason European nations gradually phased out crossbows.

Special forces use them because they are special forces. Not regular forces. They do non-standard operations in non-standard scenarios. Like, for a special forces guy he might anticipate a situation where he needs a weapon effective at medium range that makes very little noise and has reusable ammunition, but for an ordinary soldier there's basically no justification for carrying that around.

Better than bows not guns but thanks for that autistic and mundanely obvious explanation as to why guns are better than crossbows never would have guessed fucking retard

Check'd and everyone missed it

People die from golf balls user. People with access to modern hospitals manage to accidentally kill each other with target arrows fired from target bows.

Now, even here in liberalistan, deer season for recurve bows never ends because hunting with a recurve is hard as fuck. However, to parallel the "useless even against unarmored opponents meme," I'm pretty sure if me and 200 guys shot into a crowd of deer lined up on a driving range we'd get plenty of hits. An arrow wound + contemporary medical and sanitary conditions was a serious deal.

Anyhow, back to the reason for the switch, as noted:

- better penetration
- better effective range
- ammunition is cheaper to produce

And this one appears to be missing:

Archers need more space. You can group men with fire arms so that one set can fire and then move back to reload, while giving way to another group who comes forward to fire. This increases the effective rate of fire of firearms relative to bows.

You can also mass pikes and fire arms tightly together and still use the guns at close range. This makes your line much better defended against calvary.

/thread

No faggot. He's wrong. Do you honestly think it's easy to use a cumbersome weapon in the heat of battle with all the smoke? Do you think it's easy having a lit match near gunpowder?