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Bartek Strojek
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 Posted: Wed 03 Sep, 2008 2:56 am Post subject: |
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And what about general logistic and convienience?
Let's take a look at weight.
Some quite large, efficent 250 pounds draw weight crossbow vs 20mm calibur musket.
The math tells that such lead missile would weight about 45 grammes ( ~ 1,5 ounce).
I'm not sure, but from all I heard, the bolt shot from something with that draw, would have to weight ~ 4 ounce at least, to be effective.
If that's correct, firearm wielder could carry much more missiles. Or carry the same amount while being not so encumbered. Or any other combination.
What about weight of the weapons? And powder and all other equipment needed to use a musket?
I don't really have idea how much those could weight, accurately.
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Henrik Zoltan Toth
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| Posted: Wed 03 Sep, 2008 4:58 am Post subject: |
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Hello
What about african , chinese and south-east-asian crossbows?
Zoltán
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Thu 04 Sep, 2008 9:15 pm Post subject: Re: The End of the Bow and Crossbow |
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| Jean Thibodeau wrote: | | Making crossbow bolts was probably easier than making their own gunpowder if their supply was limited also ? |
Pretty much so--Bernal Diaz del Castillo mentioned Cortez's Spaniards enlisting the natives to produce masses of crossbow bolts for them, but not gunpowder or lead balls.
| Jean Thibodeau wrote: | | In general the crossbow would be more accurate except for a rifled gun with decent sights. |
Not necessarily--both firearms and crossbows varied widely in quality, and the best smoothbore musket available would probably have been more accurate than the crudest crossbow by a considerable margin. And of course let's not lose sight of the man behind the gun; a piss-poor matchlock in the hands of an expert marksman would probably still outshoot the most accurate crossbow in the hands of a totally inexperienced novice!
| Quote: | | Depending on variables, gun or crossbow might take anything from 2 minutes to load or as much as to 4 to 6 shots per minute I think ? People with practical experience with both could refine my estimate more precisely. |
In my (limited) experience, crossbows have a much greater span of loading times than firearms. The fastest crossbow I've used (a target-shooting model) can be loaded and readied for the next shot in about ten seconds or so--faster than even a 18th-century musket wielded with the most well-developed sort of musket drill--while the heaviest steel arbalests could take up to three minutes to crank and lift into a shooting position, especially if you're dead tired. This is a bit slower than the two minutes per shot or 40 shots per hour (thus one and a half minutes per shot) that are frequently quoted as the long-term sustained rates of fire for the heavy Spanish muskets.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Thu 04 Sep, 2008 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Henrik Zoltan Toth wrote: | | What about african , chinese and south-east-asian crossbows? |
I don't know much about African crossbows, but this page might help a bit:
http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/A-AAnewsletter/newsletter16.html
As for Southeast Asian crossbows, they seem to have lasted into the modern age (i.e. 20th century), and might still have been used in inter-tribal conflicts at that time by some of the forest tribes--especially for silent ambushes and nocturnal attacks. The best overview I've found about their technical details is in this ATARN page:
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/yn_xbow/yn_xbow.htm
Now, Chinese crossbows are a bit complicated. If the Chinese had anything like a "national weapon," then it was the crossbow, and their conservatism made them keep the crossbow for specialized purposes well after it was replaced in general use by reliable personal firearms. One such special-purpose weapon is the zhuge nu repeating crossbow:
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/yn_xbow/zhugehtm.htm
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/rept_xbow.htm
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Marc Pengryffyn
Location: Canberra, Australia Joined: 21 Jul 2008
Posts: 72
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| Posted: Fri 05 Sep, 2008 2:58 am Post subject: |
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| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: |
As for Southeast Asian crossbows, they seem to have lasted into the modern age (i.e. 20th century), and might still have been used in inter-tribal conflicts at that time by some of the forest tribes--especially for silent ambushes and nocturnal attacks. |
This reminded me of a story I heard towards the end of the Vietnam war about a plane going down when a crossbow bolt from a mountain tribesman went into the engine. As I remember the story, it was and F-111, but I can't find any reference to it, and it could well be a myth. I have found a reference to an F-4 Phantom fighter being brought down by a fluke shot into the cockpit... http://northlandphoto.com/campfire/viewtopic....010cf38354 This has references to Hueys taking damage too.
And another about Hueys suffering damage and being brought down by crossbow bolts into the intake... http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/archive/ind...41727.html The reference starts about halfway down the page.
I can't vouch for the veracity of any of this, of course! But interesting in the context of this thread...
Marc
Tradition is the illusion of permanence.
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