Longbow v crossbow (and handgun) - historical discussion

[Arlequín]

Do we need to amend the thread title to 'Longbow v crossbow (and handgun) and horses - historical discussion'?

We're Renaissance men and consider all things relevant (it was the Renaissance somewhere at least)... we've drifted past arrows and horses, next comes horses and arrows and we're back on track. 

[tin shed gamer]

Could be me causing that sorry
But I will just make the point that  targeting both horse and rider with indiscriminate volly fire from bows.Leads to the re instatement and redevelopment of horse armour,and the transition to crossbow,and then the rise of the hand gun and then musket,means more direct fire and targeting of the rider lessens the need for armoured horses and re enstates the need for increased mobility and speed so were back on track.
Bows are great for buggering up formations and making it feel very personal,crossbows and handguns lead to a' direct fire 'feeling of rather him that me and beast it to the objective.
It may be a little simplified for some.But as I've stated earlier from experience I'd rather face crossbows you've a far better chance of getting close enough to express just how unhappy you are at their anti social behavior.

Mark.

Usual apologies dyslexic fighting predictive text(on phone its proving a pain.)

[Arlequín]

Usual apologies dyslexic fighting predictive text(on phone its proving a pain.)

Yeah... I hear that a lot.    

On here: http://www.musketeer.ch/blackpowder/tabor_handgonne_e.html

I found this pic of 3mm plate versus 'handgonne'.



Apparently the dents were caused by a 9mm SIG-Sauer and the holes by a 'handgonne'.

[janner]

And in Urdu 

   سوار کے تقریباً ناقابل شناخت اشاروں کی اطاعت کرتے ہوۓ بہت ہی زیادہ ماہرانہ کرتب کرنے کے لیے گھوڑے کی تربیت کا طریق کار

Loosely translated as:

Manoeuvres of a horse in response to body signals by the rider

Darrell.

Of course, the desire to harness the power of the horse did not begin in the middle ages or Northern Europe - as Xenophon's On Horsemanship demonstrates 

[tin shed gamer]

In my case it happens to be true.The green background on the post preview is helpful though constant checking means I often find a little red sentence above what I'm reading to remind me how slow I'm typing and that someone's replied first.Wayne at Wargames illustrated is more than willing to do the additional proof reading and work with the pace I write at. So not as big a pain as it once was however writing on a forum is good practice.
I take no offence and understand it was ment in jest,only the need to clarify   

Right back on topic

I do so hate these sort of 'homemade' ballistic tests,for all sorts of reasons were not talking about a Clint Eastwood movie.No one is strapping flat pieces of steal to their chests,so it's not a period correct Breastplate.Its using two different calibrations,9mm and 18mm.It doesn't take into account modern rim fire rounds are designed to cause damage in different ways, fragmentation,tumbling,temporary cavitation,and so on(armour piecing is often a specific function round,)so for me it's flawed.
However for the sake of this thread it does start to show the reason why I think the hand gun became the go to weapons in the arms race,
It's not just because with its development over the years it becomes safer and easier to use,nor the lack of prolonged training required to master its use.Nor the armour piecing qualities .
It's what happens after it's pieced the armour that made people go 'cool we need these'
It's the wounds they cause.Arrows and bolts cause puncture wounds,they drag in dirt fabric and other bits on the way in,yes you can design them to cause trauma when being removed as well but it's still a puncture wound it's just a long distance stab.
With the gun it's a whole new world of wounds there's still the transfer of fabric and dirt and all the things you get the arrow,But now there's spall from the armour ,there's the fragmentation of the round ,and tumbling of the deformed shot ,temporary cavitation from the transfer of energy to the point it can remove limbs and distroy flesh not just puncture it. And there a hell of a lot harder to treat than a stab wound,they often require the removal of considerable areas of surrounding flesh in order to even be able to consider closing the wounds
It's this kind of additional damage that makes you look down at you crossbow and go "hmmm? "And start thinking about a swap.
The fact is we chose the weapons that make the biggest mess,and preferably for the lowest cost and effort.
Mark

[Arlequín]

I take no offence and understand it was ment in jest,only the need to clarify   

Mark having read your posts here and there I got the impression that you were the kind of person who could take the comment for what it was, thankfully it appears I was right and I assure you it was only meant in jest. For my part my phone and those of almost everyone I know, produce some appalling gaffs, which somehow slip through without us being dyslexic.

 

I also agree entirely with what you say too. The 9mm aspect is, as you say, somewhat meaningless, but 3mm of mild steel (which it looks like they were using) is roughly comparable to 1.5mm face hardened steel (granted it is flat plate and not curved etc.). The average thickness of breastplates (c.1470) was typically around 2-2.5mm and 'munition' plate was typically iron in any case.

While not a realistic test it was still surprising for me that it appears to have punched through with apparently little effort. The weapon used was somewhat primitive too, with a very short barrel... the early 'arquebuses' were somewhat longer in the barrel, which I'm informed increases muzzle velocity. 

Wounds-wise arrow and bolt wounds are somewhat cleaner because they cut fabric, rather than punch a hole through it and literally creating almost a 'plug' that it carries before it. A jack or arming doublet must have been doused in germs and bacteria through constant use, so indeed a wound would be a slow death if you escaped an instant or mortal one in the first place, as you say. 

Accuracy is often pointed out as being poor compared to bows and crossbows, but when you are faced by a solid wall of men, how accurate do you need to be?

[Atheling]

Accuracy is often pointed out as being poor compared to bows and crossbows, but when you are faced by a solid wall of men, how accurate do you need to be?

And ditto with crossbows and warbows of course   One has an even larger target with the bow if it is loosed at a high enough trajectory as to create a larger 'damage template'. Boy, I enjoyed saying 'damage template'!  

Darrell.

[tyrionhalfman]

When fired high I guess arrows would have the added psychological aspect of hitting victims further back in a formation so that no one would feel fully safe, rather than just the front ranks against crossbows and handguns

[Arlequín]

Ah blue sky thinking... 

Indeed massed bows would certainly have a large footprint on target, or is that damage template...  I don't know, history just isn't what it used to be any more.

 

[tin shed gamer]

No offence was taken but thankyou for your reply.Now re reading my post it my seem a little tetchy 
I'd had a very Bizarre day. I'd been in a meeting and just been offered a project for a local museum,and been asked if I minded if I was listed as an accredited supplier.So I was buzzing and went home to tell my wife.Three seconds after turning into my drive, I was sat looking at the yellow and black citron that had decided to stop in my passenger door on my own drive so I'll be getting  a lift to the York show on Sunday so. I'll be at the bar(every cloud  )

As for longer barrels increasing velocity that's a bit of a myth the difference between a rifle length barrel and a carbine is often only low tens of feet per second.what it does do is in crease accuracy (especially in rifled barrels by stabilizing the projectile ,not going to go preaching so I'll stop here) a carbine version of the same rifle will achieve similar ranges as the rifle only its accuracy with reduce the extended range.
As for higher velocity its a double edge sword ,ballistics is very complex issue.
A couple of simple easily found examples if a little odd,would be American Guns where two of their gunsmiths have. An argument over this very issue and bet over the out come.They take a Winchester rifle and cut it down now one was convinced that it would destroy the gun by not being  able to achieve a lethal velocity in fact in came in over 200ft and if memory serves only around 18 or 28 feet less than the full length barrel .Another Layman's   would be of all things Myth busters where the test fire weapons at point blank range into a swimming pool to see if you can hit a man underwater the short of it is the higher the velocity of the round the shallower the penetration (50cal sniper rifle makes less than a foot before disintegrating and a musket was the best).Another slightly of topic example of high velocity being at times in effective is Rabbiting with a .22 rim fire.If you do not achieve a head shot and hit the body often the round will pass clean through the animal leaving only a puncture wound.(they often then get up and run off to die which isn't good field craft but does happen no matter how good a shot you are things often change while a rounds in flight)
Sorry that's a bit of a ramble.
Your right about the gun being an. Area effect weapon,but so are bows and crossbows there is no way on earth you can claim each shot fire is aimed at an individual (from experience I'd agree with Mike Loads at 30-50 yards is when it gets personal and its about stopping the man right in front of you before he stops you)an arrow storm is just that not a thousand targeted shots.
You can look at the research conducted by the MoD on shots fired in ww2 they found less than a quarter of personal weapon shots fired were actually aimed.(and were talking bolt action not section weapons or semiautomatic)
The best way to understand a weapon system is to use it.
(even in England you can achieve this)
Mark.

(red sentence's again but I'm posting anyway  )

[Arlequín]

It didn't come across as tetchy, but then I'm thick-skinned anyway. 

... okay, is there a reason why the musket performed better on the water test? Bearing in mind that a 'handgonne' is the starting point for the development of the musket. I'm guessing 'mass', but I'm open for some free learning here.   

[Cubs]

As for longer barrels increasing velocity that's a bit of a myth the difference between a rifle length barrel and a carbine is often only low tens of feet per second.

Not wanting to drag this into another area altogether, but that could possibly benefit from clarification. The 'curve' of barrel length vs muzzle velocity does flatten out as you get towards carbine/rifle length, but is much more pronounced as the barrel gets shorter.

This is a graph showing the relationship for a 9mm Luger with varying types of ammo, but it's a typical pattern.

[Atheling]

Ah blue sky thinking... 

Indeed massed bows would certainly have a large footprint on target, or is that damage template...  I don't know, history just isn't what it used to be any more.

 

Target..... re: 'damage template' = me japing with wargames terminology 

Darrell.

[Arlequín]

No, I was well in the shooting arc of that jest and got it. 

[Atheling]

Few points

First off the ww2 study was more about ones willingness to kill rather than accuracy. The US military currently has those gun on target numbers over 90% by changing aspects of training.

Secondly without a rifled barrel and sights your chance at hitting anything over a few paces is essentially sweet f*** all unless you are releasing a blast of shotgun pellets.

third thing is people who don't shoot have no idea about how much accuracy is reliant on being calm and using measured breathing. Give me a calm Mr Magoo rather than a scared olympic shooter in the foxhole beside me any day.

In summary firearm accuracy is a combination of gentle trigger pressure, slowly exhaling, a rifled barrel and finally accurately calibrated sights. With one or all of those things out of wack or missing you will have trouble hitting a barn door.

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.

OT a little but very interesting nethertheless. Especially for us none military types in the UK where guns are not sold generally. It would make a good subject for a topic in a relevant forum. It's one I'd follow anyway

Darrell.