[Anders Nilsson]

Hello.

I´m active on the Totalwar forum. (I love wargames)

There is a discussion about the old bow vs musket going on and I get just tired. Many thinkt that the bow is superior. I will onces and for all prove for them that the musket is superior to the bow.

So I ask for matetrial on the subject. If anyone got pictures, facts, films etc of testshooting with bows, crossbows, muskets etc etc. I would like to have that. If you want to share it.

Post in here or PM me.

Thanks.

[Thomas Watt]

We had a thread going on this here sometime back...
lots of data, but I'm not certain the results were completely conclusive.
But the muzzle velocity figures alone should be helpful.

[Sam N.]

[Nick B.]

It depends on what you mean by superior. As someone who shoots both I would say it depends on the situation. The advantage to the bow is speed of reloading, silent discharge, being able to reuse the arrows and ability to fire it in the rain. The only advantage to the musket may be a little longer range and depending on the caliber maybe a little more knock down power. I know I can take down anything with a bow that I can with a musket.

[Jean Thibodeau]

This spotlight topic covers a lot of this:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=1321

[George Hill]

[Michael Ekelmann]

[Elling Polden]

(NB; includes perforated mummy...)
Test shooting vs Swedish King, at a unknown number of yards, using either a Danish-Norwegian or Swedish early 18th c. army musket...


Quite impressive.

[Anders Nilsson]

[Darryl Aoki]

Performance-wise in the timeframe being discussed, a longbow will probably outshoot a musket (range, rate of fire, accuracy.) A musket shot might be more lethal if it hit. So in a one-on-one match, a longbow is probably superior to a non-rifled musket, all other things being equal.

However, there's other factors than sheer out-and-out performance.

1. Muskets can be mass-produced fairly easily. Longbows take a bit more care to manufacture properly, and individual bows would ideally be made to fit individual archers. The same argument can be made for ammunition.
2. It's much quicker to churn out musketmen than bowmen. Training a unit of musketmen to the point where they're basically competent with their weapons would probably take a month at the most and would consist of loading, firing, and maneuvering drills. Training a unit of archers to a similar level of competency would probably take a couple of years. That sort of logistics alone is a partial (but decent) explanation of why the bow lost favor in armies.

Just my two cents.

[Elling Polden]

My impression is that the longbows long range accuracy is pretty much a myth.
All modern day bowhunters state that the effective range against a stationary target is less than 30 meters.

And at less than 75 meters, before the instability of the musket ball makes it weer to much, the the musket is a LOT more accurate than the bow. You point it directly at the target, and pull the trigger. If your sights are on, you hit.

Longbows where basically unable to influence the way war was waged; Heavy cavalry and infantry dominated when they appeared, and still did by the time it was falling from use.
Firearms, however, changed the face of warfare within a century of its large scale adoption. By 1600, both the heavy troops and the archers where gone, replaced by pike and matchlock firearms. A hundred years after that, the flintlock with paper cartridges had driven all other weapons from the battlefield.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Price of ammunition is a big factor. Lead and powder were expensive, but not as expensive per unit as arrow or crossbow bolt. Anyone out there have figures, say from about 1520, for the prices for each?

[Michael Curl]

Wars are won by logistics. If you can train more men quicker, cheaper, with less pay, and more easily replace them, that alone is enough to prove their superiority. If you add to that their ability to pierce armour (yes armour became heavier, but it meant that less knights could be equippped cap-e-pie than before, and they'd have to go to 3/4 armour with no barding, allowing you to blast a horse from under them.) and now you see why it is superior.

[Nick B.]

Anders didn't specify what type of bow, I shoot a Hungarian Horse Bow. George, you don't think a bow can take down a wild boar? I've seen bear taken down with a bow. Yes, a boar would be harder to hit then a bear but it will go down. As for armour there is documented proof that in Medieval times arrows did pierce armour. Yes, it does take more skill to use a bow effectively then a musket. I know I can fire a bow four or five times in the time it takes to load and fire a musket. Your odds of hitting your target increases with the number of shoots you can take in a given time. I think the bottom line is that it depends on the situation and who the shooter is.

[Bryce Felperin]

There's also more to the issue than just rate of fire, accuracy, training time and logistics.

By the time the firearm started to replace archery and crossbows the armies and nations of the time were undergoing changes. You now had nation states that needed to field larger armies for longer periods of time out in the field. That changed the dynamics also in that you needed a lot of men to be equipped and armed and with less cost. As armies grew in size it became harder to find qualified longbowmen and easier to train men to use firearms instead.

So yeah, it was a lot logistics...circular argument...

[Dan Howard]

Regarding longbows. There have been few credible tests against armour. The best was done by the Defence Academy a few years ago. I have posted a review here.
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=79261
Compare the results from this test against some of the better firearms tests and you'll be able to draw some general conclusions. There was a reason why various kingdoms virtually bankrupted themselves to change over to the new technology.

[Ian Hutchison]

[Elling Polden]

[Ian Hutchison]

[Elling Polden]

This is a subject of much discussion, and has been since the moment he hit the ground.
Noone knows for sure.
To me, the hole looks more consistent with a golf ball...