[Peter Jensen]

I've been trying to get a clearer idea of when the various types "cold missile weapons" went out of style. By these I include bows, crossbows, and slings, though I'm also interested in various thrown weapons though they don't seem to have survived much into the Renaissance, at least not in Europe.

As to the latter category, one of the last users of the javelin seems to have been the Gallowglass. I don't know much about them, but the ubiquitious Wikipedia mentions them using "throwing spears". How late would they have been using such a weapon? (I gather most other other thrown weapons - plumbata, franciscas, etc., went obsolete in previous centuries. And then there is always Hollywood's favorite, the throwing knife, but I know nothing of this weapon.)

The Scots look to be the traditionalists of the Renaissance. From George Gush's excellent article I learned that the Scots were using bows as late as 1638 (even after the big claymores seem to have fallen out of favor). Are these English/Welsh-style longbows? I would expect they are, but most sources that deal with that weapon in Britain refer to them strictly as "longbows", so I'm not quite sure about these "plain old bows" the Scots were using. (If not, I really don't know what you call a non-composite short bow.)

(As to the longbow itself, last use seems to have been used a little in the English Civil War, but only by the Cavaliers. 1642 comes to mind.)

The composite bow has a huge area of usage (looks like Hungary to Japan) but I can't tell when it went obsolete. I gather that the Japanese adopted and then banned the matchlock for a time, during which they surely would have continued with their magnificent dai-kyus. Details?

The Ottoman Empire is said to have been at a distinct disadvantage at Lepanto (1571) due to its reliance on the composite bow, vis a vis the Christian employment of crossbow and arquebus. (Echoes of the Scots, who, like the Turks, seem to have developed fine cannon while neglecting musketry.) Any ideas how long they held onto bows after that? Google hits imply they were still using them at Vienna, 1683.

How about the Poles and Hungarians? Lots of sites talk about hussars carrying bows, but they tend to be vague about dates. Was this weapon peculiar to hussars or would the same armies have also featured archers on foot? (Hussars seem to overshadow the other types of central European soldier a bit, at least in the stuff my cursory search has turned up.)

I have no sense at all when the sling and crossbow fall out favor as weapons of war. Cortez employed crossbowmen in his invasion of Mexico, but after that my trails run cold. I surmise that slings would been abandoned as the family traditions of father-to-son sling training were broken, but as to when that was, I don't know. (It could have been before the Crusades, for all I know.)

[D. Austin]

I'm not sure how late the Gallowglass used javelins, but if I'm not wrong, they were active well into the 16th century. I found a picture of others however, from a French manuscript from the 1470s, showing a javelin being thrown. The trouble with this picture though, is that the central character (the small one) is Marcus Aemilius Lepidusis, a Roman from long before the picture was painted. Whilst during the 15th century it was not uncommon to depict historical characters with 15th century clothing and equipment, it may have been that the artist was attempting to depict an item which had been recorded in history as being used at the time and was not a common 15th century weapon.

[Danny Grigg]

D. Austin what's the name of that manuscript / painting you posted?

Do you know where a can find a bigger picture?
Perhaps in a book that I can purchase or borrow from a library and scan so I can get a good look at the Javelin / Dart.

Thanks

Danny

[D. Austin]

Hi Danny,

This illumination is from a manuscript kept in the British Library. The catalogue number for the image is 014926. If you search www.imagesonline.bl.uk for this number, you should be able to find it.

Darren.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

In 1548, Fourquevaux wrote favorably about horsemen using double-pointed javelins.

[Peter Jensen]

"Really? I'm afraid the information you got was misleading or incomplete, since in the 16th century the Turks were still a leading power in terms of firearm adoption--their Janissary corps in particular included some of the best firearm-equipped soldiers in the world. As for Lepanto itself, I guess John F. Guilmartin's article on the battle is still one of the most readable treatments available online. "

Looks like I was hasty with the Ottomans. I think the information I had used was speculative, and it applies mainly to the Ottoman navy in 1571. A better source has the majority of Ottoman soldiers armed with the composite bow, but also mentions (p. 61) the firearm-packing Janissaries you've noted. Also, I wasn't factoring in the point that, while bows may have outnumbered firearms in Ottoman service, pikes outnumbered firearms in the Holy League (even at sea, apparently - not such a surprise considering the importance of boarding tactics, but it still makes me wonder if the naval pike is as long as the army pike - 15-18' of weapon seems like a lot to use on a sailing vessel). So the Turkish fondness for the bow didn't slow firearms development in that Empire, any more than extensive polearm use prevented it in Europe.

As to archers in irregular service up until the 20th Century! This I did not know. I do remember something about the flagship of their Persian Gulf squadron being a brigantine or something like that ... the rest of the vessels being German-built torpedo boats. So the Ottomans are obviously worthy of a second look....

And a big broad thanks to everyone who replied.

[Joel Minturn]

Well found this book, The tacticks of Aelian, originally written in 1616. It had a nice wood cut of cavalry throwing javelins. I thought it was odd but maybe it was more common than I thought, which wouldn't be too hard as I didn't know existed. Not sure it the was depicting current tactics or something that was out of fashion.

Also had placement for slingers w/ where not with the archers or rifles. if i remember right

It really was an interesting book would recommend anyone who can get the book through ILL. Had some other nice wood cuts of what the well equipped soldier should wear, cavalry wearing 3/4 armour w/ 12 gauge carbine. Foot soldier w/ pike and rapier - thought that was a bit odd in a British book. wish i had scanned in those wood cuts.

[William Elder]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Henrik Zoltan Toth]

Hi!

I heard that the last usage of arrows and bows in large number in a european war was in 1813, in the battle of Leipzig. The russian army had bashkir mounter archers, who fought in the battle.

[Peter Jensen]

Yes, Henrik Zoltan Toth, The Bow in Culture, Music and Surgery, as Craftman's Tool and Weapon (quite a title!) by Richard Kinseher backs you up. A French officer (Col. Marbot) got himself arrowed by one the Allied achers. Also ... the first time rockets were used in European warfare ... by the British (who I didn't even know showed up to that battle until I saw that source!) That is the kind of information I'm looking for.

(Back to the rockets for a second ... these are the same Congreve rockets mentioned in the USA's national anthem. Not bad technology for the time, though as I recall Kublai Khan's forces brought some types of multiple rocket launchers when they invaded Japan in the 13th Century.)

[Marc Pengryffyn]

[Gordon Frye]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Peter Jensen]

Interesting points about Spanish use of the weapons in the Americas. As to making crossbow projectiles vs. lead and powder, I don't know much about that, but I gather that one of the last uses of the trebuchet was in the Americas, where one may have been made on-site by Spaniards around. It damaged itself, indicating maybe some of the finer points of its construction had been lost. In any case, being thousands of miles from home would have changed the possibilities for fabricating new weapons ... something I hadn't thought of.

I have also heard of the creation of Big Joe and Little Joe crossbows during the Second World, but I don't think they were ever used. Not a bad idea, but firearms suppressor technology was starting to get reasonably effective by then so I suppose they went with pistols and submachineguns with can-and-baffle devices.

[Bartek Strojek]

Well, about a crossbows - aside from what Jean Thibodeau said, I think that good crossbow had quite a lot other advantages over the guns up to 1550 - 60 period or so. Thus, despite of many obvious advantages of firearms, it was still used.

Crossbow was probably more managable and overally practical weapon, it was silent, and most certainly much more accurate than arqebuzes and early muskets. In many battlefield of Europe it didn't have such matter, but in smaller scale batles, ambushes, hunting et cetera it certainly had.

[Peter Jensen]

Bartek Strojek, those a good points. I've read a lot comparing bow to gun, but little comparing crossbow to gun. Obviously bows had rate-of-fire advantages over both gun and crossbow, I just don't know which of the latter had the advantage. Loading a matchlock apparently takes more steps, while loading a crossbow is probably much more strenuous.

As to training - it takes more training to get the full accuracy potential out of a crossbow, because it's so much more accurate. I don't know if it is particularly hard to fire a crossbow to the level of accuracy possessed by an arquebus.

Expense? I know guns were much more expensive than swords in early 17th Century America (thanks to Sean Flynt), but I don't know how much crossbows cost. I think crossbows were generally more expensive, and probably somewhat more fragile. Any information from the era?

As to the armor, your post made me realize: while guns didn't exactly make armor vanish from the battlefield instantly (as I've heard asserted in some places), guns certainly did seem to make mail obsolete. Plate can deflect bullets, layered cloth can absorb the blow, but chain is just a bad way to defend against bullets. On the other hand, mail may actually be better against crossbows than layered-cloth armor. Does that sound plausible? (I've often thought that the large number of coats of mail at Jamestown, 1624-1625, may have been intentional, since it seems like a decent way to protect against flint arrowheads, but others seem to feel that the mail was obsolete even in America.)

It seems like boiled leather would be reasonably effective against both weapons (with the usual caveat that this wouldn't apply to close range or orthogonal angles of impact). I have no idea how good brigandine would be against either.

[Randall Moffett]

Something to keep in mind is that not all armour used not expected to be proof against all weapons. Mail was still in use into the 17th century from what I can tell for certain jobs, even the WWI with Tank helmets I think made of mail curtains. Most battles until recently were decided in the hand to hand melee so armour could be designed for this As well not just missile cover.

The gun took a long time to over come the bow and especially crossbow. It was not just tradition. You knew your weapon could kill and hurt people so why change. Early guns were either massed with crossbowmen, until c.,1500 typically the crossbowmen in predominance after this begins to shift, though countries still fielded entire groups of crossbowmen in the16th and in the 16th for the first time you see units of only musket men unmixed. The gun to crossbow as far as rate of fire and amount of time needed to learn to use are comparable but the differences, noise level, manner of reloading and accuracy would vary.

RPM

[Jean Thibodeau]