The advantages and disadvantages between the Single-Shot Crossbow and Repeating Crossbow?

I've seen video's and read books on various types of crossbows (how they function, their reliabilty, accuracy, etc.) and I would like to hear anyone's comments/opinions of the pros and cons between these two particular types of crossbows?

The Wikipedia article says it all. When we look at the versions small enough to be personal weapons, the ordinary Chinese crossbow has a much greater penetrative power than the Chinese repeating crossbow but suffers from a lower reload rate. In general, it seems that the ordinary crossbow is preferred for open battles while the repeating crossbows come into their own in the defense of fortified positions.

[quote=\"Lafayette C Curtis\"]The Wikipedia article says it all. When we look at the versions small enough to be personal weapons, the ordinary Chinese crossbow has a much greater penetrative power than the Chinese repeating crossbow but suffers from a lower reload rate. In general, it seems that the ordinary crossbow is preferred for open battles while the repeating crossbows come into their own in the defense of fortified positions.[/quote]

Sometimes wikipedia gets it right ...

BTW, did you understand anything of the american project?

Maybe I\'m getting old but it didn\'t look clear to me at a first examination.

Thanks again everyone for your input for this topic! :)

From the description in the site, it looks like the American project is essentially a crossbow operated like either a lever-action rifle (say, the Winchester) or a pump-action shotgun. I haven't had the chance to look at the detailed plans myself so I can't be sure which one is really the case here.

I think Mr. Curtis got it right. From what I can gather, it's a pump action weapon. The last picture in the PDF shows a pump that, when pulled back, recocks the string and loads another bolt into place. The trigger simply pulls down on a presumably spring loaded block to release the string. I found it interesting that it's a top feed design. It makes sense though, as you don't have to have a sping to feed the bolts into place like a modern magazine. Good old reliable gravity takes care of that.

On second inspection, it looks like the pump handle actually becomes the firing block I mentioned earlyer, actually staying in the rear position till the weapon is fired. The bolts themselves look like they have a notch cut halfway down their length for the string to set in. That's the first time I've seen something like that, all the crossbows I've seen get pushed from the back like a regular arrow. It's quite the impressive feat of design.

I don't know enought about period manufacturing techniques to make a call on whether or not it could be built. The only problem I can really see would be the screws.

I appologise for my ramblings. I've had too much caffene, so my engineering student side has taken over my brain. :)

I think, that fakt, that repet crossbow newer maked a career (thoud nown long time ago) shows that single soot one did beter, probabely repeated one had to be light, loosing range and impact power.

and the only advantage of repeated crosbow - frequency - was easely substituted with numbers of wariors - especialy in China ;)