Longbow v crossbow (and handgun) - historical discussion

[Charlie_]

An early handgun would have been used at pointblank range to incapacitate an armoured opponent regardless of where it hit. I would encourage thinking of them more in terms of an RPG-7 than an m-16. In other words, an inaccurate short range one shot anti armour weapon.

I'm tempted to think of medieval handguns as something akin to shotguns in their usage, though I've no real idea how accurate that is.

In wargames terms, I'm thinking they should be effective when shooting at massed formations at close range. But fairly useless when it comes to any long range 'sniping'.

[tin shed gamer]

I think you missed the point I'm trying to make,I'm more than aware of the actual contents of the study.im trying to keep my posts as short as possible (still using a phone) and inviting people to look into the examples used not take what a say as gospel .This example does apply for references a willingness to aim to kill and taken in the context of this thread and deferring back to earlier posts on the increased use of non professional soldiers and peasant levies.you can make a distinct link between accurate aimed fire and the willingness of any raw recruit to kill.
I'm trying to use examples that are easily visualized and do not require a technical proficiency to follow.I'm  not dumbing down just being mindful of the fact not everyone hear has be in contact with firearms nor had someone try to make their day decidedly boring by pointing them their way.
As for smoothbores' being ineffective after a couple of paces if that's the case why spend nearly two hundred years hunting with them.
 the hand gun is the ancestor of modern rim fire. not a shaped charge.I understand your comparison However I personally don't see the starting point of the hand cannon being a desire to create a man portable armour piecing system.just a bloody good way to put a man or a horse out of commission that with use also was found to be really good at putting the armoured on there arse too,for such little effort.
Mark.

[Arlequín]

I'm not Davy Crockett but I have put a ball or two through a target with a smoothbore at 50 yards, which also appears to be roughly the distance most handgun demonstrations and tests take place at. I also seem to recall 80% hits as being something like average. Obviously there aren't guys running or riding at the shooters, nor is there any sense of urgency in loading and shooting.

But... I could sight down the barrel, while from what I've seen of illustrations of handgunners, they used their armpits to steady the weapon, at least until after the proto-matchlock 'serpentine trigger' was introduced. You can't really aim something if it's not at the shoulder, but you wouldn't have to worry about that with a large body of men as a target.

I imagine the effective range might be as little as 100 yards, unless they understood trajectory and compensated for it somehow. Balls from some handguns have been shot out to 600 yards plus using modern powder, although I gather relative accuracy wasn't measured.

Scurv mentioned horrific wounds... a .75" or 1" ball means a large wound channel that crushes the flesh before it, unlike arrows, bolts and bullets, which cut and tear. Added to the actual channel a tissue-damaging 'temporary channel' many times the size of the projectile is also created and a 'hydrostatic' wave produced. Non-lethal chest gunshot wounds by 'heavy and slow' rounds like .45 ACP, have actually caused brain haemorrhages or temporary and permanent paralysis from the neck down as a result of this wave.

As an example you can shoot an arrow into and sometimes through a melon, but a large round or ball will make it disintegrate.

They are not one shot weapons btw, starting loaded 3-4 rounds a minute has been achieved. The Germans had fully armoured cavalry with quite short-barrelled, but wide bore handguns for a time in the 15th Century apparently and I'll bet they were one shot though... almost a forerunner of the pistol in a way. 

[Stuart]

Hello all

I'm really enjoying this thread, the deviations are interesting and insightful and I'm somewhat proud of those who are expressing concern of going off topic, very conscientious and polite - refreshing even but like I said it's a great read.

Anyway, reading this with a predominantly Renaissance interest it got me wondering when something akin to the caracole became a practice. I immediately thought of that with reference to arquebusiers, the Pavia tapestry hints at formed bodies of them doing this which in turn suggests some form of early drill as opposed to giving a guy a hand gun.

I wonder when this notion developed, given that reloading was something of a driver to its development one wonders whether bodies of crossbowmen did it.

Rules tend to split that into formed shot / bows and skirmishers in reflection of grouped and independent fire so is the caracole or something like it a technique worth considering for handguns and crossbows, is there any evidence of it or of drill of any kind with missile weapons. The Swiss being examples of drilled pikemen to an extent so did that extend to other weapons?

Just a thought / additional point to consider.

Stuart

[Arlequín]

Well the term comes from the Spanish for 'snail' (as in the shape of the shell, rather than as 'at the speed of') and is mentioned in the Late 15th Century for the Jinetes ... I can only assume it was the practice of riding up, throwing a javelin and then turning away 180°, moving off a little, turning again and repeating the process. Possibly it was done in sets of riders, so there was a continuous stream of guys riding up and throwing, and then turning back.

There's no reason why crossbowmen couldn't do it, it was a tactic used against infantry who could neither shoot back, nor move forward to stop it; the Jinetes would simply shorten their run up and increase their ride back to maintain the gap. 

[jon_1066]

To my mind that shows the importance of combined arms in the medieval period.  If you were deficient in archers or cavalry then you could expect a world of hurt.  There would be very little that infantry could do about those Jinetes - but a couple of hundred archers would soon stop it.

That would point to me to the utility of them even if they couldn't penetrate full harness.  Without them you were very vulnerable to other tactics and weapon systems.

[Stuart]

Here's what I was thinking of, the first painting is earlier and appears to show arquebusiers performing something akin to a carocole (is there a different term for infantry - I know it refers to cavalry generally, pistol armed being another example).

[sukhe_bator]

The Chin and later used to mix missile troops, because the crossbow was slower to reload they had archers providing covering fire. The result was an almost continuous trickle of casualties inflicted and served to keep the enemy at bay.
The Japanese used the same technique in the 1540s when arquebuses were first employed. It was not until the 1570s-1580s as levy armies grew larger that single weapon units became more common.
The caracole is simply a single weapon type unit employing the same continuous fire rotation, the only tactical variation being that with training they could also advance or give ground slowly by moving the firing rows in front of or behind the last..

[Arlequín]

There would be very little that infantry could do about those Jinetes - but a couple of hundred archers would soon stop it.

Spanish warfare of the time and of course that of their Granadine opponents (who probably came up with the tactic first), was more focused on ambush and raiding. I imagine it would be a case of the Jinetes appearing from cover, a short sharp set of volleys and off again before their opponent could bring up what was needed. Actual formal battles were few and far between and naturally opposing troop types would tend to cancel each other out.

Here's what I was thinking of, the first painting is earlier and appears to show arquebusiers performing something akin to a carocole (is there a different term for infantry - I know it refers to cavalry generally, pistol armed being another example).

I know there was something of the kind 'firing by introduction' I believe it was called, which was certainly being used by the late 16th Century. Earlier I really don't know, but I imagine it might have been somewhat less co-ordinated than later if it was, perhaps a matter of firing individually then moving back to reload at your own speed and then walking up again when you'd reloaded.

[Stuart]

How did Charles the Bold use missile foot or rather what were his strategic expectations when employing bows, crossbows and hand gunners. We're they entirely independent units or did they support each other?

[Atheling]

How did Charles the Bold use missile foot or rather what were his strategic expectations when employing bows, crossbows and hand gunners. We're they entirely independent units or did they support each other?

Off the top of my head I cannot remember the source Stuart but there's a depiction (or was that a description?) of Charles using one rank of pike to defend a couple of ranks of archers somewhere.

Oh, I should add that I'm not thinking of the Osprey 

Darrell.

[Arlequín]

Maybe Painterman/Simon will take that baton up... from what I can make of the French though, they deployed their Ordonnance archers to support the gens d'armes on the wings, although there is evidence that they could do so as 'medium cavalry' or massed foot archers (others' mileage may vary).

By the 1470s The Swiss apparently formed the centre of French armies, with the 'Francs-Archers' (a mix of longbows, crossbows, voulgiers and spearmen) on either side of them. I assume the Burgundians did likewise with their crossbows, pikes and handguns.

I've never seen what I would call skirmishers in illustrations, they all seem too close together, although at what point a loose mass of shooters becomes a tight mass of skirmishers is a hard call. Personally I think we tend to bolt-on too much from later times that wasn't there.

As Darrell says Charles experimented with mixing his men up, but I don't recall hearing whether he judged it to be a success though. Certainly nobody seemed to copy the idea.

The only contemporary images we have are woodcuts of what I believe to be Burgundian ordonnance archers (judging by the riding boots and spurs) backed by men at arms and coustilier.

[tin shed gamer]

I'm going to add a little musing,Stuart's first picture,reminds me of contemporary agricultural / rural scenes where farming tasks are depicted with characters at various stages of the process being depicted at the same time.
Makes me wonder if the artist has in 'Stuart's ' picture done some thing similar rather than the front rank firing at will.Has Depicted the complex series of events from loading to firing(compared to both the bow and the crossbow) I don't think it's a technical manual,just an attempt to represent all the points of interest in the process for his contemporaries as this weapon is still big news and some what an alien process for the untrained,so there's an artistic attempt to inform rather than represent an actual tactic.
I have a hard time coming to terms with the idea that these weapons were used in such away.There would have to be drill and structure to your actions when you bursts of sparks being fired,when others around you are at different stages  of loading.
I prefer to view these weapons  being to a degree fired rank by rank vollies not everyone taking random shots.This cuts down the time between loading and the next volley ,nor can I see any commander allowing whole units to be head down and bum up while reloading and taking forever to get the next shot off.
It's to disruptive and increases it vulnerability .it s already been mentioned that some people attempted to correct this rate of fire issue by attaching groups of archers to in crease fire rates and patch over the rate of fire of these weapons.so if I've missed off or recover the latest points raised it doesn't matter,
As I said just a musing.

Mark.

[Arlequín]

Those are good points and observations.

I never quite understand the very deep shot units of the early Spanish Tercios; a lot of shooters in depth on a small front. Apparently volley fire was some way off too.

Maybe shooters stepping up was a 'safety first' thing, where they were removed from the guys loading, so their flashing pans didn't cause a hazard?

Certainly most art gives an 'effect' rather than a snapshot of tactics. I would rely on them more for clothing than how they fought... but the 'idea' of a battle is usually there.

[Atheling]

*Never* underestimate the artistic conventions of the day. It's also important to take into account that it was often the clergy, not the soldiery, who devised the designs (as such) for the illuminations/chronicles, though this was not exclusive and certainly less common as we enter the so called Renaissance period.

Cheers,
Darrell.