/k/ - Weapons

>>613437

I mean exactly as the image combined i.e. bulk of line infantry to be armed with crossbow, and will engage with enemy by bolt volley.

In close range they can switch to their sword I guess.

Though I guess that's one weakness of crossbow, its shape is hard to use as a melee weapon.

>>613460

If they're going up against 18th century musketmen doing that then they're dead. Reloading a crossbow powerful enough to have the range and punch you'd need as a battlefield weapon is a long and physically demanding process. The reason they used the pavise was to make sure that they didn't get wiped out by archers while they were reloading after all. Best case scenario they get off a single volley before the musketmen close and wipe them out with ranked fire.

If you tried to use that formation in the medieval period then they would just get charged down as soon as the enemy cavalry realized that the enemy actually was that retarded and stopped laughing. If you're looking for interesting attempts to reintroduce medieval weapons in the age of gunpowder then the Bongs did consider swapping their muskets for longbows in certain specialist units, as at that point a longbow had a higher rate of fire and arguably a better range (remember that at this period most units were trained for area fire rather than to aim at a specific man), they stopped when they remembered that using a full power longbow is something you needed to train with from a very young age if you wanted to use it as a weapon. Assuming that you intended this unit to fight musket armed infantry what advantage did you think it would give them? If you meant to use this for medieval warfare then what advantage would the formation have?

>>613486

I'm asking this to introduce this in medieval warfare.

Would mass volley fire of crossbow enough to deter cavalry charge?

>>613490

I'm surprised too of why the early infantry did not make use of crossbows with musket like unit tactics, were the most of the units in an army was formed of crossbowmen supported by some units of spear (to counter cavalry) ,my guess for why it was not practiced is that crossbow ammo is harder to mass produce or that at the time there were no means of mass producing crossbows.

instead of this I would much rather go with a pike n'shot formation

mix crossbowmen with pikeman and there you go, fuck the tin cans

1.

>enemies use their shields to stop all the arrows

>crossbowmen get slaughtered

2.

>enemies are so heavily armored the arrows stick to them but don't penetrate into the body

>crossbowmen get slaughtered

Choose

>>613496

if im not mistaken, late crossbows were able to penetrate armor and shield, also its expensive to equip all of your army with heavy armor,

>>613496

shit, i forgot to say that there were different types of crossbows, what would the predominant type be in out imagined army?

>>613490

>Would mass volley fire of crossbow enough to deter cavalry charge?

Sometimes, yes, that's why they used them.

Read up on the tactics of Spanish tercios and German Landsknecht. They existed in the period when guns slowly started dominating the battlefield. Both of them relied on pikemen and muskets, supported by artillery, cavalry and specialized close combat infantry. As time went on they relied more-and-more on muskets and so the number of pikemen started dropping. Then with the invention of the bayonet and better guns they could do away with the pikemen and other mêlée-oriented infantry. They had the sheet firepower required to break enemy formations with musket fire, and a bayonet charge was enough to scatter the survivors. This tactic could also work against cavalry if they did everything correctly. Mind you, most of the time the bayonet was more of a psychological weapon that was used to hold their ground, because an average person doesn't want to charge a wall of men holding pointy sticks.

Vid related is a good depiction of what happens if the line infantry fails to stop a cavalry charge. Their main mistake was that they started firing too early, so they panicked when the horsemen didn't start dropping like flies. Therefore they were unable to hold their formation, and got scattered and slaughtered. You can imagine how worse would it be if said line infantry has weapons with less firepower that are slower to reload and also don't function as pointy sticks.

>>613497

Late crossbows could penetrate armour, but they were heavy and required a special reloading tool. they were as much of a pain in the ass to load as the arquebus if not more since they required a larger mechanical component than even a matchlock.

It's important to note however that heavy crossbows are harder to use from an entrenched position, even with the tool requires more energy to load and operate which tires the troops more, has much less psychological impact and lower penetration relative to physical energy input, muskets also provide a sometimes useful sometimes hindering smokescreen. Of all of those features the main one is the energy, with crossbows you still have to use your own human energy to launch your projectile, limiting the amount the commanders can force march you and limiting the amount of useful melee you can contribute to.

It's also important to not get confused with early modern/late medieval gun terminology, musket was originally used to refer to larger (commonly armour piercing) rifles with the arquebus and handgun having insufficient power for higher gauge plate.

>>613518

>psychological impact

>limiting the amount of useful melee you can contribute to.

That reminds me of this nice video that at first seems to be unrelated. Indeed, the sounds and light of musket fire has a lot greater psychological impact, and the bayonet charge is just as scary as a charge with better close combat weapons. Not to mention that they had pretty good musicians to back them up. In other words, I'd like to stress again that they not only had more firepower, but also a lot more shock power than before.

>>613422

The Persians did something similar having a very thin front line of men with wicker shields and spears….but backed by an enormous amount of archers.

Things fell apart for them when armor was good enough to stop most arrows, so in Marathon the Greeks just ran at them in a long thin line, then smashed through their lines and destroyed them.

It'd work with crossbows no doubt, but they'd have the same weaknesses (frontal charge by heavy infantry or flanking by horses).

>>613530

One issue with any large formation infantry is that by virtue of being massed units they often had a lower standard of armour. so while a foot-knight may be vulnerable to a crossbowman but not an archer, a crossbowman will often be placed at undue risk of archer fire at the front of a formation. it should aslo be said that an archer can use a small shield or buckler with his bow, whereas a heavy crossbowman would need a pavise he can place into the ground while he loads which widens still the vulnerability gap between possible forces. i suppose the counter would be to focus all of your funding onto helmet and back armour like some sort of strange turtle soldier, but then they would be yet more vulnerable to lance and pike.

So if crossbows were useless against armor and shields like >>613496 suggests, and infantry or cavalry can steamroll them as described by >>613437, and archers can fire faster and can use better shields as stated by >>613541, then why did this piece of shit even come into use on the battlefield? From what I've seen in this thread the crossbow is apparently a clumsy, weak, overcomplicated weapon, so what made it justifiable for military use in medieval times? Is it just that they were stupider back then?

>>613567

Think of them as bolt-action rifles chambered of Lapua Magnum. They aren't bad weapons at all, but you shouldn't equip a whole squad only with those rifles and then expect it to win a firefight.

>>613572

But according to >>613496 common soldier armor and shields can effectively stop crossbow bolts, so it'd be more like an entire squad armed with Ruger 10/22s.

>>613567

All three of them have no idea how the crossbow was used on the battlefield. All of continental Europe used the Crossbow, which should tell you how useful it was.

Crossbows were successfully used by Europeans to fight Oriental mounted Archers, their bows couldn't overcome the Pavise shields, they lacked the armor to stop crossbow bolts and they usually didn't attack with with Infantry to be faster.

Should they try to directly attack die Crossbowmen, that meant they were close enough so that the European Heavy Cavalry(Knights) could catch up and destroy them.

Later their were accompanied by formations of Pikemen, which made the European infantry pretty nasty to deal with. If you want to get the Crossbowmen there are Pikemen in the way and if you wanted to get the Pikemen you get shot at by the Crossbowmen.

Unlike the Longbow, the crossbow allows being operated at a relative small space(like in the formation of a pike square) and the person operating it can actually aim without having the strain of drawing the bow.

>>613575

Modern body armor can stop bullets and SWAT shields can stop them to, so should the police and soldiers stop using them?

>>613567

>From what I've seen in this thread the crossbow is apparently a clumsy, weak, overcomplicated weapon, so what made it justifiable for military use in medieval times?

Can be used by malnourished peasants with little to no training (much like firearms), quality archery requires years to perfect and normally a culture has to be created around it.

>>613422

Crossbows and bows have about 5 times less effective range comparing to muskets so they can't provide decisive firepower of gunpowder and turn shooting infantry into main power of the battlefield like musket did.

>>613577

>All three of them have no idea how the crossbow was used on the battlefield.

Nigger this is a gookposter thread about a hypothetical scenario where you put a line of crossbowmen on an open field like in OP's pic. Your entire post had nothing to do with any of that. Crossbows lacked the power to penetrate plate. His men would get slaughtered without inflicting a single casualty to the enemy. This is the entire point of this thread. Telling gookposter that his idea is retarded.

>>613422

Crossbows and bows have about 5 times less effective range comparing to muskets so they can't provide decisive firepower of gunpowder and turn shooting infantry into main power of the battlefield like musket did.

>>613577

It's more a question of if the Brits talk about how bows can pierce armor and shields, while the Greek is talking about how bolts can't do that, why wouldn't they use bows instead?

I actually know all of this already, but I'm purposely asking all of these stupid questions in order to force people to realize that many of the posters in this thread are exaggerating the weaknesses of crossbows and inflating the abilities of other medieval weapons, either out of ignorance or from a genuine, but misplaced sense of superiority. The Genoese and Swiss would have been nowhere near as popular and widespread mercenaries during the medieval period if crossbows were really as pointless as many people in this thread seem to think.

>>613585

>why wouldn't they use bows instead?

Late crossbows were slightly more powerful and a lot easier to train with.

And no, neither arrow or bolts can penetrate plate armor.

>>613577

Medieval crossbow loses to bow especially against composite bow. Crossbow shines as siege weapons and can be utilized by low trained personnel. During siege shooting can be done by several sharpshooters and reloading done by all manservants of the castle. Another interesting thing about crossbows is that bolts with wooden fletching have infinite shelf life, again very useful quality for castle military stockpiles.

When siege warfare doesn't gets enough attention because it sucks it presented major part of European medieval warfare.

>>613577

Not all bows and crossbows are the same, and you can't speak of them as if they were as similar as modern rifles of equal caliber and barrel length. The main reason continental powers favoured the crossbow was due to the difficulty in maintaining a sufficient pool of trained bowmen relative to the potential threat of invasion. the Pavise equipped troops are vulnerable to heavy archery, recurve bow mounted archers are not a comparison to a full size bow especially since many types of crossbow exceed the range of that bow type.

>>613585

Are you suggesting that i believe crossbows are pointless? id like to see some evidence of my thinking that, perhaps you were hiding the motive of your questions behind feigned ignorance because you know your assumption is baseless? good to know that you atleast suppressed your weaselyness enough to admit you were secretly trying to argue with me rather than have a conversation. the point of this thread is the question "why arent crossbows used with linear tactics" and i am explaining that they were not an overwhelmingly dynamic changing weapon in the way that the arquebus was as shown by examples of them not being used in that way, and the ways that they fail in areas the matchlock didn't. even in your own post you provide an example contrary to your own beliefs, the commonality of crossbow mercenaries would be evidence of them being a quickly purchased resource during wartimes, not of them being a carefully cultivated talent pool as many archers were. The crossbow never had the potential to usurp the entire dynamic of warfare in the way black powder slowly did, the crossbow was part of a complex dynamic of interplaying weapons far more varied than in even the period of pike and shot.

>>613567

As the other guy said, amazing magnitudal logistical ease. The bare minimum of being physically able to draw back the string is all that's required, which when compared to bows is mind-blowingly better, even if they're slightly worse in a 1v1 comparison.

>>613597

>since many types of crossbow exceed the range of that bow type.

Where are these bollocks come from?

Medieval crossbows had less range that bows especially than recurve composites. Because of crossbows design with heavy parasitic mass of limbs and string. Even most powerful 1500 lbs draw weight crossbows had same arrow velocity or less than bows (in the 45-55 m/s range) Crossbows power can be only utilized by increasing bolt mass but this doesn't range though provides penetration.

Stop using AD&D and gaems as references.

>>613582

>Nigger this is a gookposter thread about a hypothetical scenario where you put a line of crossbowmen on an open field like in OP's pic.

Nigger they did that, not like in OPs pic but there was a period where you had groups of crossbowmen forming a line, they put down their shield, fired and then they where backed up by the second line, while they were reloading.

Repeated volley firing of crossbows was a thing and a good group of crossbowmen could eat an Infantry formation, regardless of the fact that plate could block them, because not every normal soldiers was covered in plate from head to toe. This is what many Swiss mercenaries earned their money with.

Crossbows aren't the best all around weapon in the medieval world, but they played an important part in the change of military tactics during the later medieval period and allowed Europeans to push back against foreign invaders.

>>613587

>Medieval crossbow loses to bow especially against composite bow.

Composite bows are shit in the European climate and the British Longbow has too many drawback for the training required to use it, which is why continental European Armies replaced their bows with crossbows during the 12th century.

>Crossbow shines as siege weapons and can be utilized by low trained personnel.

Crossbowmen weren't low trained personnel, they either organized in town guilds or were highly paid mercenaries.

>>613619

>Composite bows are shit in the European climate

>he thinks European climate is bad

>he never been in the Siberia hell

>Crossbowmen weren't low trained personnel, they either organized in town guilds or were highly paid mercenaries.

Point ->

(you)

>During siege shooting can be done by several sharpshooters and reloading done by all manservants of the castle.

>>613624

>he never been in the Siberia hell

Anon Siberian climate is stable compared to Europe. Dry heat or constant cold are good to preserve things, yet a changing climate that is seldom really cold or warm and that is constantly moist and has high humidity will rot everything quickly.

Also as I pointed out in my first post Mounted Archers from the East which usually used Compound Bows got their asses kicked by European Armies that gave up their Bows and replaced them with Crossbows.

You can talk how the Compound Bow is better than the Crossbow all you want, yet the historic fact is that Crossbows replaced Bows in 90% of European Armies and then Europe kicked the asses of Compound Bow using Asians with them.

>Point ->(you)

>During siege shooting can be done by several sharpshooters and reloading done by all manservants of the castle.

Anon the thing is the point didn't got over my head, I ignored it because your sentence was simply wrong, crossbowmen didn't work that way even at sieges.

The guy shooting the crossbow is also the same guy reloading it, there were no manservants involved.

Part of the reason why crossbowmen had a high reputation, was that they got trained comparatively hard for a commoner soldiers at that time so that they could reload their crossbow fast during a combat situation.

You are right about the fact that crossbows didn't usurp the entire dynamic of warfare and that they were a part o a complex dynamic of changing battlefield tactics at the time, yet almost everything you talked about the actual usage of crossbows during that period was completely false.

>>613637

> was that they got trained comparatively hard for a commoner soldiers at that time so that they could reload their crossbow fast

I haven't read any other of your posts but this immediately lets me know you're spouting bullshit

>>613662

Its not bullshit, professional crossbowman did exercise faster reloading time.

They were still slower than bows, yet a professional mercenary crossbowman could reload faster than if you gave the crossbow to any normal footsoldier.

Additionally crossbowmen where popular at a time when Europe began to transfer to have standing armies instead of raising armies just for war time.

So crossbowmen where along the first fulltime professional soldiers as we understand them today.

On top of that crossbowmen were also commonly deployed for skirmishing in front of the army, meaning they had to be fit enough to sprint with their big heavy shields and crossbows to the front, put their shields down, attack the enemy and then be quick enough to fuck off fast should an enemy formation attack them.

If the crossbow was a weapon you could give to any smuck to be proficient with, the French Kings wouldn't have paid such a shit tone of money to the Swiss to get their mercenaries.

>>613637

> Dry heat or constant cold are good to preserve things

>i know nothing about Siberia

BTW crossbows with composite limbs greatly outnumbered steel crossbows in Europe and were used for much longer time. See how dumb you are?

>and that they were a part o a complex dynamic of changing battlefield tactics at the time

Crossbows were castle/town weapons not battlefield weapon. Most known achievement of crossbowmen in field combat is been trampled by their own knights at Crecy

>>613637

re-read some of the post IDs mate, i think you're confusing me and the other brit at the end of this post, although you were disagreeing with both of us.

>>613686

Hiding your flag to shit on people is pretty fucking low tbh, correct your behaviour. you either hide your flag and dont flagpost, or you flagpost and show your flag, even if it's martian.

>>613686

Americans actually invented best bows and crossbows known to a man. Thing euros couldn't figure out for thousand years of their history (and people say Dark Ages didn't exist lol).

>>613422

They did "Pike and Shot" with crossbows and even bows long before it was a thing. How the English used to rape everyone including Scots and French.

>>613705

>Americans actually invented best bows and crossbows known to a man

Burgers are this delusional.

>>613719

>i don't know about compound bow

>>613718

Raping scots is not a great achievement and brits were beaten by a little french girl, lost hundred years war and all their continental fiefs..

>>613684

>BTW crossbows with composite limbs greatly outnumbered steel crossbows in Europe and were used for much longer time. See how dumb you are?

Nah you are quite obviously moving the goal post. We were talking about bows vs. crossbows, not the difference between crossbows with composite limbs vs. ones with steel limbs.

>Crossbows were castle/town weapons not battlefield weapon. Most known achievement of crossbowmen in field combat is been trampled by their own knights at Crecy

You are wrong, as seen by the fact that the crossbows was used on the battlefield all over Europe for good 400 years and was only replaced by firearms.

In fact you even proof this point yourself, if it would have been ridiculous to deploy the crossbowmen at Crecy the French would have never done that in the first place.

Crecy happened in 1346, yet the Genoese crossbowmen that died there were known to be an elite unit since the first Crusade in the 11th century and survived until the 16th century.

Special crossbows for sieges did exist, but they were not the type of crossbows the Genoese or other crossbowmen used on the battlefield.

>>613691

Oh you are right, I am sorry about that.

>>613724

Too bad literally everything you use is invented by Americans.

>>613729

> me dumb kraut was blabling how composite bows can't work in europe but i was too dumb to know that eureos used them as composite crossbows fro hindered years

USsd them after they stole invention from arabs during Crusades.

>if it would have been ridiculous to deploy the crossbowmen at Crecy

results again clearly demonstrated that crossbowmen should stick to castle towers.

>Special crossbows for sieges did exist,

you don't need special "siege" crossbow to shot from the castle

>>613736

>>613733

>these mad Ahmeds typing on US invented smartphones in US invented Internet.

>>613744

>he thinks me is from us

>>613727

>Brits

I know Islam is the new religion of your country but back then it was English and they were beaten by cannon.

>US invented Internet

>He thinks what the US military used is anything like worldwide web we use today

It is now obvious you truly are a burger using proxy. The internet as we know it today was invented by a Britbong.

What the fuck happened to this thread.

So for the record, crossbow was not used in the same way musket was due to some reasons:

- reloading is way more complex and takes longer time

- harder to use as a melee weapon (lack of length and tubular design to add a bayonet)

- way less effective range, and stronger crossbow is considerably heavier in weight

But we must note that continental armies (German, Italian, French, Spanish) all increasingly incorporated crossbowmen into their infantry formation (and it later evolves into pike and shot), so this thought of mass crossbow fire wasn't too out there.

Never mind the brit stupido who said crossbow is a fortification weapon, that's bullshit. Crecy didn't end the use of crossbow, 50-100 years later they were still used en masse.

>>613775

What are you even doing in this thread? you're raving about americans and yet you posted with a yankee IP on your one flagged post. are you alright? why are you debasing yourself?

>>613807

Did you guys use crossbows or archers? did you copy chinese crossbows?

>>613739

>implying arabs invented anything

Composite bows were used in Europe long before the crusades, both the Greeks and Romans had them. If anything the Greeks and later Romans took that shit from the inbred fire worshipers who got those things from Steppe niggers. Composite bows do have a problem with the humidity of western europe, its why self-bows were rather prevalent until the crossbow came around. Composite crossbows do not have a problem with the elements due to how they're constructed.

>>613812

We used crossbow even to this day, many mountain hunters still use big ass crossbow, in fact one of our earliest myths involving our ancient line of King protecting the land with some kind of God/Divine crossbow, then the chinese sabotaged it and took over the country.

>>613813

As we all knows, composite bows aren't shit compared to the longbow.

Yes, composite bow can be smaller and weaved into interesting shaped like re-curved bow, but yew wood longbow has always been the best.

What if Washington had archers?

>>613819

still, id take a composite recurve over any other bow of equivalent length. their power to weight ratio is ridiculous.

>>613666

>a professional mercenary crossbowman could reload faster than if you gave the crossbow to any normal footsoldier

>A trained professional user of a specific weapon system will use that system more effectively than someone without that special training.

Holy shit Satan! You're onto a very important point there! Effective training regimes do definitely improve the way you use a tool/weapon! This completely changes the argument!

>>613705

>>613731

>>613739

>>613741

If you don't have the balls to post with your own flag them turn it off and accept the ridicule you deserve.

>>613807

>we must note that continental armies (German, Italian, French, Spanish) all increasingly incorporated crossbowmen into their infantry formation

Yes, the crossbow is a weapon that is notably less effective than a longbow wielded by a (very very very) well trained man, but it is a hell of a lot easier to field a few thousand crossbowmen than it is to train enough of your people to produce a few hundred mid-range longbowmen. The mercenaries who had the funding and time to train with crossbows made up for a lot of the deficiencies of the weapon (when compared to the longbow), but expert users are not really relevant when talking about army level use - unless you do what the Bongs did and use legal and cultural tools to produce as many of them as you can which would probably be equivalent to a modern army fielding entire regiments of Delta/SAS/Spetsnaz equivalents mixed in with your average riflemen - it would probably end with you looking completely retarded unless you somehow made it work

>>613837

What's wrong with mixing veterans into rookie troops again?

Shouldn't they balance each other out?

>>613852

Producing veterans is a long and uncertain business (a lot of men are inconsiderate enough to die in the process as well), and then while the vets are certainly going to improve a unit of rookies the rookies are going to break a lot faster than the more experienced men which puts those vets in a place where they're very likely to get killed. It would generally be a much better choice to put those skilled and experienced men into special units where their greater skills can be used without risking losing them unnecessarily.

>>613863

>>613837

None of your guys point are contradicting each other, I would say the kraut is more knowledgeable on this message.

Just the damn brits who again cite muh Crecy as end of crossbow.

>>613819

> but yew wood longbow has always been the best.

Objectively false. For teh same draw weight composite recurves produce more energy per shot and they have much faster velocities with light arrows.

Also when composite bows are longer and more time consuming to make they don't need rare materials to be good.

>>613893

For a light bow that'd work. In the latter years of the crossbows life you'd require a cranequin or a windlass due to 1000lbs+ draw weights.

>>613586

>And no, neither arrow or bolts can penetrate plate armor.

Uhh…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodkin_point

>>613722

>compound bow

> he hasn't heard of the Scythians.

>>614236

>Doesn't even read the article he brought up

It clearly states it can only penetrate chainmail. There are only rumors of it penetrating plate once in a test from point blank. The entire absolute existence of plate armor was to make the wearer a monster to defeat. You cannot penetrate it with medieval weaponry. "Armor piercing" arrowheads may stick on plate but won't go through.

The only realistic way to kill someone covered in armor is through openings or horrible amount of blunt force. Projectiles back then simply lacked the velocity required to go through thick steel.

>>614485

>>614485

>Talking about crossbows in serious military application

>Uses picture of a engraved stone crossbow

Reloading a musket is a multiple-step process in which many things can go wrong, so training men to reload muskets more quickly is particularly valid and useful. A crossbow does not have that issue, you could hand one to a five year old and they'd figure out how it works within a minute. Especially in later years, crossbows were for sure a solid piece of machinery, but regardless of what year or what type, you require absolutely 0 training to fire and reload one, unlike bows. You could possibly shave off a few seconds of reloading time if given to a muscular, well-versed veteran. That benefit does not mean anything. The moment you produce enough crossbows, you can dish them out to any dumbshit conscript levy and bam you have a crossbow unit. This was the main attraction, because despite production costs, despite a lower volume of fire, they required virtually no training. Yes, there were professional units, like the genoese, that could stand in the face of danger and continue to reload, but those are the distinct outliers & not a reality for standard armies.

>>613586

Arbalest sure can.

>>613863

What were those large cross bows for? giant dragons?

>>614514

longer ranged fire at enemy formations from secure positions.

>>614567

Also dragons.

>>613581

>>613583

For early muskets, that was definitely not true. The real advantage was not in range or rate of fire but in armor penetration, shock effect, and that muskets make much better melee weapons than bows.

>>613422

I've done a fair bit of study on this one. China in the Warring States period and early Han dynasty essentially did this, with line infantry tactics, as well as several different methods of volley fire and even trench warfare. They still required spears/pikes/halberds since crossbows are even worse than bows in melee.

Chinese crossbows were superior to medieval European ones because of the layout of their trigger mechanism. The Chinese trigger allowed for a much longer power stroke (period of acceleration on the bolt) meaning that a lower perceived draw weight would be more effective. Chinese crossbows had a powerstroke almost on par with a bow, meaning a 250lb crossbow was equivalent to a ~1250lb European one; but this also meant that while a European crossbowman needed a windlass, a Chinese crossbowman could draw with a belt loop and a squatting motion. They could fire volleys much much faster than Euros, almost on par with bowmen.

>>614728

I doubt your findings, if chinese crossbows were stronger, there ought to be more advanced in armor in China.

>>614872

Actually, what armor did Chinese have in that time? I've seen plenty of jap and european armor of different designs but i cannot recall any of their designs.

>>614878

Lamellar armor or wood armor.

>>614879

Then may it be that it was impractical to use armor against such crossbows and it just became (almost) obsolete like it did with firearms?

>>613869

>15,000 genoese crossbowmen v. <6,000 english longbowmen. Who wins. I'll give you a hint, the answer is in Manuscript Froissarl's Chronicles, and it doesn't agree with you.

Strelok your argument is based on a single battle in a war that in the end was lost by the British. Additionally the battle was won because the French used inferior tactics, not because their equipment was faulty.

The crossbow was the most popular range weapon in Continental Europe for centuries and was only replaced by firearms. Nations switched from the bow to the crossbow, but never the other way around.

>Crossbow guilds existed in only a few exclusive regions, specifically Flanders. English…

Anon you know that compared to Continental Europe England is nothing but a flyspeck on the Map? Its just the lower part of the British Island and if even a few places in Europe had Crossbow guilds than thats a bigger landmass and number of people than England had peasants at that time.

>… were forced to learn how to use the longbow effectively from children, and they continued train with until they literally could no longer pull a drawstring.

Strelok all the peasant had to do was learn to stand in line, pull the string, then shot in the general direction of the enemy on command and then shot some more, before the enemy comes to close and the archers had to retreat.

Meanwhile the crossbow mercenary had to learn to operate a war crossbow with a pulley, have stamina enough to run both with his crossbow on the back and his pavese shield in hand and operate in various tactical roles depending on the battlefield.

Alone the formations they used to move in are more complex than anything the British Longbowmen ever did.

>Have you ever shot a crossbow before?

Yes I have both modern ones and those used for war in the medieval times. Crossbows are still popular in Germany as they are the only range weapon not hampered by retarded weapon laws.

>I have. I, somehow, managed to pull the trigger in the general direction of the target and, surprise, it fired. And it took a bit to pull back the string, but it's not a exactly complex concept. Now, go pick up a longbow and try to shoot it anywhere near the target without shredding your hand & wrist.

Anon the sad fact that you suck at using a crossbow and completely failed at using a longbow is not a good basis for an argument. That you think it is, is the only laughable thing here.

>>615018

>Nations switched from the bow to the crossbow, but never the other way around

When did I argue anything even remotely against this? Yes, of course they changed because a crossbow is on or above a bow's playing field and requires no real training.

> is nothing but a flyspeck on the Map

Then what does that make the two or three provinces that had crossbow guilds?

>pull the string, then shot in the general direction

>crossbow mercenary had to learn to operate a war crossbow with a pulley

The amount of training it takes to teach a peasant to shoot a bow in the general direction of the enemy is a hundredfold what it takes to 'teach' them to operate a pulley.

> stamina

>operate in various tactical roles

Do you have brain damage my dude? Do you think bowmen just stood around and drooled on themselves?

>Yes

Good, that means you know how easy it is to fire one.

>ur bad

Try harder lad, if you want to talk laughable, your understanding of reality fits the bill.

>>615018

>>615049

I still do not understand the fuck you are talking about.

>>615018

>all the peasant had to do was learn to stand in line, pull the string, then shot in the general direction of the enemy on command and then shot some more, before the enemy comes to close and the archers had to retreat.

Nigger, you can teach someone to fire a crossbow in an afternoon and they'll know it for the rest of their lives. For a bow, you must teach them since childhood (train their very bodies to facilitate use) Archers were built differently, they literally had a noticeable difference in their muscle structure due to the immense amount of training using a bow required. You can't hand a bow to a woman and have her be effective in combat because her woman body literally cannot handle the draw strength of the bow, but hand her a crossbow and she can at least be useful. Hopefully this highlights the importance of physical training which you seem to be disregarding.

>>614493

>but those are the distinct outliers & not a reality for standard armies.

Literally the opposite is true. It's also bleeding obvious you've never operated a windlass.

>>615049

>teach a peasant to shoot a bow

It's the burger curse to think medieval Europe operated under some jeffersonaian equality principle where the most powerful people who had the privilege of owning land based on their ability to defend it with force spent time actively arming their underlings with heavy weapons.

> dumbshit conscript levy

Lol no nigga

> You could possibly shave off a few seconds

Try 20

> you require absolutely 0 training to fire and reload one, unlike bows.

This has never been true. It's like the 100000 times folded katana can cut through 20 fully armoured knights argument but for ranged weapons.

>>615209

>never operated a windlass.

Uhuh, and I'm sure you have. There's these neat things called videos that exist, it's like a bunch of pictures moving real fast.

>It's the burger curse

It's the european curse to back up a strawman with ad hominem attacks on someone they can't actually prove wrong

>Lol no nigga

Lol yes nigga

>Try 20

Ah yes, the famed pulley-pros, who can break the sound barrier with their experience at pulling a pulley and operating handcranks.

>This has never been true

This has always been true. It's almost like saying winding a handcrank is easier than spending a hundred hours to get proficient at firing a bow, or spending five hundred hours to physically build up your arm muscles to fire a longbow.

>>615213

I think there's an exaggaration on both sides here.

It's true warbow like the English yew-wood longbow needs strength training from teenager to master.

But a windlass arbalest isn't just every peasant weapon either, because it's heavy and complex. You need strength to use it as well as the mechanical knowledge to repair it in case it breaks during operation.

>>615222

>You need strength

Less strength than a heavy-poundage bow.

>mechanical knowledge to repair

Huh? Crossbows don't jam or misfire like firearms do. The largest amount of knowledge needed is how to restring the thing, if any piece breaks off that's equivalent to like a receiver blowing apart, unless it's unusually easy to repair you just get a new one entirely.

>>615098

>Archers were built differently, they literally had a noticeable difference in their muscle structure due to the immense amount of training using a bow required

Don't forget the changes to their skeletal structure too. The archers musculature was so overdeveloped that they needed larger bones to pull on. You can line up a few hundred 500 year old skeletons and pick out the men trained to use a longbow just by looking at them with the mk1 eyeball.

>>615226

I think he was talking about the windlass or other crank breaking, not the bow itself.

>>615222

trip wasting CHARLIE COMMUNIST you wouldn't understand bows because they are the tools of the WHITE MAN

>>615370

Excuse me your yellow socialism distracted me, I meant CROSSBOWS, as in if the rice paddy man CROSSES my path he will be BLOWN away by WHITE MIGHT

>>615370

Vietnamese use bows too.

Bows are rather archaic tools tbh.

>>615375

Indigenious mountain tribes do use crossbow.

>>615377

Why are you defending the RED ENEMY and his primitive SAVAGERY? It's times like this I miss McCarthy

>>615381

That's me the Viet in a VPN.

>>615385

COMMUNIST INFILTRATORS WILL BE SHOT

>>615893

Most of the points there are already said somewhere ITT tho.

>>615897

and now you grasp the true nature of /k/!

>>615178

suck my dick, fatty

So is there really a proper answer to the argument of how powerful crossbows actually were, particularly the ones carried by normal soldiers/peasants? Could they actually punch through plate armor, or were was their total draw weight too weak for that?

>>620551

short answer: 1000lb cranequin can't go through any plate or even metal-scaled armor, is iffy with mail but will go straight through anything lighter

>>620553

But that's skallagrim with modern reproduction shit, you can't take that too seriously.

>>620551

Breastplates and helmets were usually crossbow-proof. Limb armor was sometimes thin enough to potentially be penetrated, but this required a powerful crossbow and no small amount of luck. Fortunately full suits of plate were fairly uncommon on the battlefield, so even cheap hand-drawn crossbows could be devastating in numbers.

>>620555

You're right, and it's particularly dented modern repo shit too. Meaning that the fact a crossbow couldn't go through it means that actual field-use armor would've been even more resistant.

>>620564

How come? Field use armor would be even more dented and this reproduction stuff is probably put together by chinks with modern and stronger steel.

>>620565

Field armor would've had their dents fixed far before any battle that takes place anon, what, do you think that they'd just leave it? I don't know about steel quality but considering that I know repo stahlhelm are far weaker than real ones were makes it likely that it's not as good

>>620567

Well, that depends on if they have the time or ability get work like that done. Repro stahlhelm can be weaker but that's a difference of 20th century vs 14th century. Steel quality by the 20th century was pretty damn close to what we have today, not so much for the steel used in the late medieval era. It's well documented that the church wanted to ban the crossbow being used against Christians.

>>620573

It appears to be what I expected then. I don't quite buy some Skallagrim video being definitive proof that crossbows couldn't penetrate armor. If it wasn't a great equalizer between the lord and the peasant, I don't think the church would have wanted to ban them.

>>620587

Church ban has no effect.

People just don't realize how free was Europe before modernity.

Machiavelli promoted armed citizenry for quick levy for christ sake.

>>620600

Italian city-states were the ultimate lolberg dream tbh, rich fucks doing whatever they wanted but being just smart enough not to fuck over their subjects too much.

A lot of their forces were like the pal's battalions of ww1, where the militia and levies would all be conscripted from specific areas of the city, so each formation had their own history and martial record to look up to.

>>620724

Ironically, Machievelli tried to break the hold of mercenaries by giving rise of conscription via armed citizenry.

But it's Napoleon who 300 years later make full mobilization a reality.

I still think conscription is still the way to do line infantry.

>>620738

>in a modern way

I mean that in a modern war. Smarter people learn faster and better, and I do believe that most infantry combat will be urban combat where you either learn quickly or die quickly.

>>620738

Conscription is the great filter, most you get is trash but sometimes you get the good.

My ideal has always been a core elite pampered up by conscripts.