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Testshooting results please
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.
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.
Re: Testshooting results please
Anders Nilsson wrote:
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.


Logically, I would think that the fact that muskets replaced bows is a good enough argument. After all, why would muskets be used if a simpler, cheaper and more hassle free weapon like the bow was more effective?

Also, what do you mean by 'musket'? I don't think bows were widely used in warfare when the musket was around (17th and 18th centuries, I think).
Bow or musket
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.
This spotlight topic covers a lot of this:

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


Last edited by Jean Thibodeau on Sun 20 Jan, 2008 3:16 am; edited 2 times in total
Re: Bow or musket
Nick B. wrote:
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.


'cept a gun in plate armor. Or a wild boar. Or pretty much anything that needs to be hit harder then a bow can, but we already have that topic.
Re: Bow or musket
Nick B. wrote:
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.


Actually, the musket does have some advantages over the longbow. It is easier to become proficient with, you can be sick as a dog and still use it, it's ammunition takes up less space than that of a longbow.

As another poster wrote, muskets must have had something going for them, else why would we be using thier descendants today?
(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.
Re: Testshooting results please
Sam N. wrote:
Anders Nilsson wrote:
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.


Logically, I would think that the fact that muskets replaced bows is a good enough argument. After all, why would muskets be used if a simpler, cheaper and more hassle free weapon like the bow was more effective?

Also, what do you mean by 'musket'? I don't think bows were widely used in warfare when the musket was around (17th and 18th centuries, I think).


Well I thought that that argument would wotk but they must all be stupid or something, they want more proof. The game is suppsed to cover ca 1700-1820 or so.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Test shooting
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.
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...
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.
Elling Polden wrote:
(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.


Excuse me, is that Charles XII? He's the only Swedish monarch I know to have been shot in the head (by a Norwegian musket).
Ian Hutchison wrote:
Elling Polden wrote:
(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.


Excuse me, is that Charles XII? He's the only Swedish monarch I know to have been shot in the head (by a Norwegian musket).


That is correct. The latest examinations (of the photos) supposedly state that the hole would match the caliber of a swedish musket, and the fact that the entry wound is larger than the exit wound sugests rather long range, indicating a random stray bullet...
(The presentation of this evidence being the excuse to put this holesome visage in the paper)
Elling Polden wrote:
Ian Hutchison wrote:
Elling Polden wrote:
(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.


Excuse me, is that Charles XII? He's the only Swedish monarch I know to have been shot in the head (by a Norwegian musket).


That is correct. The latest examinations (of the photos) supposedly state that the hole would match the caliber of a swedish musket, and the fact that the entry wound is larger than the exit wound sugests rather long range, indicating a random stray bullet...
(The presentation of this evidence being the excuse to put this holesome visage in the paper)


A Swedish musket eh? If I knew more about where he was standing and on which side the Swedish were dug in, I would ask myself, was he shot by one of his own men?
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...
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