Thread 64144676

If longbows perform so much better than crossbows, why didn't they just build crossbows from longbows?

>>64144676 (OP)
Isn't that just a ballista?

>>64144676 (OP)
I keep seeing clickbait thumbnails on Youtube for something pretty much exactly that so go look it up nigga

>>64144676 (OP)
Because longbows can be fired rapidly while crossbows cannot. And the only reason you have a crossbow is for close quarters or confined spaces that make shooting a longbow not very effective.

>>64144676 (OP)
WHY DIDNT THEY JUST INVENT THE INSTANT LEGOLAS

Longbows are such a meme. Most other types of bows were better.

>>64144759
>the only reason you have a crossbow is for close quarters or confined spaces that make shooting a longbow not very effective.
Noretard, it's because it takes years to be proficient in a bow, while any conscript can learn a crossbow in a short time.

>>64144676 (OP)
>If longbows perform so much better than crossbows
they don't

>>64144676 (OP)
Early crossbows like the gastraphetes were pretty xbox hueg, but they're unwieldy as fuck

A key feature of crossbows is whether they fired arrows or bolts. If your crossbow fired an arrow, you would need to knock it, which would mean you wanted a longer draw, and you would get a gastraphetes. a kind of siege crossbow.

if you fired bolts, well then you wanted a higher velocity to compensate for the lower weight of the bolt, which means your bolt wouldn't be knocked^1 and so you would take a short crossbow arm and some kind of mechanical loading aid, the simplest being a goats foot lever.

Why did the gastraphetes go out of fashion? I don't think it ever did actually, it was just a very neich crossbow.

Also worth noting that there were two adjacent weapons.
The Turks had a kind of short arrow which was fired from a regular bow with the aid of a tube, it just flew further than other arrows, a practical alternative to getting a larger bow.
And the Romans/Greeks had the tortion barista, genuinely terrifying, which was also an option in sieges and sort of the next step up.

THE BRITISH LONGBOW WAS THE SUPERWEAPON OF THE MIDDLE AGES

>>64146280
Bro why does your post have a footnote symbol

>>64146303
>tortion barista

>>64144676 (OP)
Wide armed crossbows did exist in Europe and Asia, but the issue always remained that you couldn't pack your men as close together. Less shot density means less damage to the enemy, and less formation density means you die more if you're ever caught by other troops.

Longbows are literally just a meme victorian britfags latched on to, to try to cope with the fact that England was a shithole impoverished backwater for most of history.

So they instead positioned the Longbow as some terrifying superweapon, rather than a desperate attempt to field something viable. It's inane. The entire mythos of the longbow hinges on glorifying one single individual battle the English won, in a war they lost, to disastrous effect.

It'd be like if Wehraboos started trying to push a "muh two world wars" meme about 9mm. Like, yeah we lost and yeah it was devastating and yeah Germany is like half the size it used to be but 9mm was there! Hell yeah!

>>64144676 (OP)
If you did that it would be 6ft wide
>longbows perform so much better than crossbows
They don’t. You could make a crossbow that performs better than a longbow if you wanted, and you wouldn’t do it by slapping a longbow on the end of a stick. The longbow is not even a particularly good bow, it’s just relatively cheap and simple. Not that European crossbows were great either. For one reason or another, they suffered from poor efficiency and a very short draw length.

Anyways, people already made better crossbows, you can just buy them. Well, someone with money could.

>>64148987
>Longbows are literally just a meme victorian britfags latched on to, to try to cope with the fact that England was a shithole impoverished backwater for most of history.
it was the richest country in europe and then the largest empire the world has ever seen while simultaneously being the most advanced country in the world until the tizzard mission. read a fucking book nigger.

>>64149051
>Not that European crossbows were great either.
Ok Chang.

>>64149538
>it was the richest country in europe and then the largest empire the world has ever seen
Yes, it was. It wasn't when the longbow was at its peak. Nowhere near.

Rome was once the greatest military power on the planet. That doesn't mean Italy in the 1890s was. Do you understand? How would you feel if you didn't have breakfast?

longbows weren't special weapons, they had some advantages and some disadvantages to crossbows but it was more about the widespread adoption of infantry with lethal ranged weapons, integration of battle between the professional warrior classes and the less professional ones and the adoption of makeshift fortifications in battle while english society behaved in a very different way from the much larger french one to allow them to fight a country that had 4-5 times the population
advantages of longbows were things like cheaper bow cost, longer range and the obvious rate of fire
some of the advantages of crossbows are higher draw strength, especially when you get more complex loading mechanisms and better steel, cheaper ammunition and less training requirement

>>64149611
>to allow them to fight a country that had 4-5 times the population
I mean, that's not really it. The English controlled half of France at the time. And you know, they lost, so it didn't really work out.

>>64149627
>the English controlled half of France
The French who controlled England also controlled half of France

>>64146280
>and you would get a gastraphetes
That's almost exactly what I was thinking of. Why didn't these ever get more popular?

>>64149713

Because they were large, bulky, expensive, and time consuming to make.

>>64149782
So are others crossbows but with the added benefit of extremely long reload times

>>64149713
I am 100% convinced it's because they make you look like a dork. If a weapon doesn't look cool, and look cool to use, people dislike it.

>>64144676 (OP)
Gastrafetes actually existed, anon.

>>64149051
European crossbows didn't have sitting systems either

>>64144676 (OP)
Because training a man to the point where he is effective with a period accurate, war-strength, longbow is a lot of fucking work. Besides the skills you needed to develop the physical training turned them into fucking bodybuilders - you can literally identify the skeletons of longbowmen by the overdevelopment of the bones in their shoulders and arms, to give all that extra muscle something solid to pull on (at a time of almost universal malnutrition).

To put it into a modern context that you'll have an easier time understanding OP, England fielding large numbers of longbowmen in the high Middle Ages would be the equivalent of a modern country trying to build its entire military around a core of a vastly expanded Delta/SAS tier special forces.

The reason that Britain did something that retarded, and rebuilt large parts of their contemporary culture and economy around that decision for centuries, was because their main rival at the time was France - the unchallengeable military super-power of Europe at the time, and they needed every advantage they could find or create.

>You could train an illiterate peasant to use a crossbow over a single long weekend
>"To train a longbowman, start with his grandfather"

>>64149051
To be frank the whole English longbow faggotry is kinda funny as hell because it's literally
>Brits discover something known to the browns +3000 years ago in Egypt.
>Behave as if it was some nevah bin dun b4 military innovation when it's Oriental army 101.

>>64150088
>~180lb draw weight longbow
>Oriental Army 101
lol

>>64150088
the difference being that the bongs made it work whereas the browns gave up on remodelling their bodies to maximise its power

>>64150065
>universal malnutrition
stupid meme spread by armchair farmer historians who've never so much as kept a hen
>they needed every advantage they could find or create
true however

>>64144676 (OP)
>why didn't they just build crossbows from longbows?
longbow tech development was ahead of the curve, and by the time crossbow tech caught up, armour had lapped both and firelocks had become necessary

the key, as always, is material technology.

>>64150098
It's ok, one holds the bow while the other draws the string.

>>64149051
ching chong shill inserts his national myths into unrelated threads again

>>64149875
>make a couple scratches on the trigger
>pretend it's a useful and inventive sighting system
implessive

>>64150317
>>64150315
They were so eager to use crossbows due to their noodle arms. Steppe nomads and Europeans didn't have that problem. Remember, they did not advance into arbalest, just regular weak ass crossbow that can't do shit to plate armor, which they also couldn't do. Europeans invented the arbalest and perfected the firearms, China got stuck with bows crossbows well into the late 19th century.

>>64149627
Due to the incredibly bad way the English (and medieval in general) economy worked, the government extracted basically no wealth from conquered French territories, and were in fact a net drain. They also started the war with none of those territories. The fact that England could achieve all those gains in the first place can be placed squarely on the integration of the bow into their armies. As an aside, it was the integration and mass use of the bow that was the battle-winner. The longbow itself is a completely ordinary medieval war bow.

>>64150350
do you think each medieval nation should have just defended its borders and grown internally rather than grab territory?

>>64146309
>most damage at Agincourt was caused by trampling, pits with spikes, mud and fucking CANNONS
>muh longbow
Face it, 15th century is the century of black powder.

>>64150368
>CANNONS
shows what you know
back to History Channel, dumbass

>>64150373
They had cannons since fucking Crécy, 70 years before Agincourt.

>>64150376
yeah? your mum has had a twat since forever too, she been a whore that long?

the number of casualties from cannon at Agincourt is actually known. you can count them on ONE HAND, dumbfuck
and those
>pits with spikes
aren't pits either

go back

>>64150350
>The fact that England could achieve all those gains in the first place can be placed squarely on the ineptitude of French monarchy during that period, much like it was in reverse during the last stage of the war.

>>64150387
ftfy

>>64150387
The French monarchy being retarded is just business as usual for Medieval France, you can't put the blame there.

>>64150402
They got their shit together later on when they were completely inept and incompetent earlier. Ditto with the Henry VI whose reign was so poor politically it not just lost them the war despite all the gains but plunged England into decades of civil conflicts.

>>64150368
Actually unmounted English men at arms did most of the work, along with the prepared fortifications. None of this would work if French army had any kind of coherence to it either, rather than a jolly band of ungovernable knights with an tetriary escort.

>>64149713
The Ancient Greeks abandoned them because they were unwieldy, fragile.The torsion balista and ratchet crossbow were both of greater utility than the gastraphetes, and the various stone throwing engines had merit in a related capacity

If you fire a 12 pound children's bow you don't really get a sense for this but as you move up in poundage the likelihood of a dry fire breaking the bow becomes very real. A short bow might be 30 pounds, for hunting, a war bow might be 80 pounds, most people couldn't even draw one, a mechanical bow could come in at 100+ pounds. if you fired that without an arrow, the string snaps, the limbs fly forward and shatter, you don't want to be anywhere near it. and given how hard it was to make a recurve bow, to break a six foot long recurve bow would be a serious setback.

>>64150441
kek there are theories of the French getting this shit together after Agincourt due to all the nobles being killed. No more bickering, big centralized government.

one of the issues regarding the study of Agincourt is how deeply it has been politicised. partly by pro-French historians, partly by historians who simply can't believe that yes, Virginia, longbows can pierce armour.
hence you find all kinds of funky excuses such as
>preponderance of head injuries means that the perfidious Englishmen probably executed all those Frenchmen after capture, and arrows don't penetrate armour!!
which ignores that for virtually ALL bodies we have of medieval combatants, the majority of wounds are to the head, probably because everyone was gunning for the head, no matter what weapon was used. and also because gutshots and flesh wounds don't show on skeletons.

>>64150485
iirc Agincourt wiped out most of the nobles on one of the two major factions (Bourbon, iirc?) which enabled the other to eventually achieve dominance and thus unity of command
besides, nothing like being uber-raped in battle once to focus the mind. like Pearl Harbor, and both Yom Kippurs.

>>64150485
Just having a sane active king is already quite a boon desu.

>>64150492
>one of the issues regarding the study of Agincourt is how deeply it has been politicised. partly by pro-French historians, partly by historians who simply can't believe that yes, Virginia, longbows can pierce armour.
Brother, it's been politicized and inflated to no end by none other than the British. Trying to shift the blame and spin the longbow meme is simply pathetic at this point.

>>64150512
>by the British
no more than every single European nation at the time, which is how the battle came to be famous in the first place, as can be attested from contemporary accounts
>longbow meme
cope

>>64150535
>no more than every single European nation at the time
Why are you such a lying faggot? The british history forgets to mention who lost the war between talking about exclusively Crecy and Agincourt.
>cope
crooked teeth

>>64150557
if anything, British history is too apologetic
go fuck yourself, collabo

>>64150566
If anything, you're so full of shit you might as well be a glass of ganges water.

>>64150485
One of the things about Medieval politics that prevents one country from just snowballing over all the others was how undertaxed (by the monarchy) they all were. A defeat panics everybody and allows the monarchy to extract concessions and taxes from everybody under emergency measures. English gains were consistent enough that by the apex of English gains, this emergency taxation was customary enough to allow the French monarchy to crush all resistance to rescinding these taxes and any uppity nobles that wanted to return to feudal-style independence of earlier decades. One ironic example is that by capturing the French king after Poitiers, normally major coup, they kicked off huge taxation for raising the ransom, one of the few taxes which was mandatory under feudal law, and then the French didn't pay the ransom and kept doing the tax.
And yeah, The English winning those three big victories, also helped the French a lot. It allowed cooler heads to prevail. It followed a cycle. English beat French in battle -> French do Fabican strategy (successfully) -> new generation grows up wondering why they're not allowed to battle this poverty-tier army -> repeat. People say a lot about the battles wiping out entire noble families and dynasties, but there's always more noble sons waiting to fill the ranks. There was a lot of political chaos after the battles, and the dukes who would lead resistance against centralization were unscathed, there's always someone available to become head.

>>64149875
Implessive

Notice the placement of the trigger mechanism, the short draw length, and the steel arms. It's a fundamentally flawed design. They compensated for it by cranking up the poundage, but that's not a real solution. That's how you get crossbows with 1000lb draw weights that get outperformed by 150lb draw weight self bows.
Either they didn't understand the physics in play here, or for some reason (maybe cost and ease) they didn't care.

>>64149563
>>64150315
>>64150343
>butthurt retards seethe over imaginary enemy
If you don't know anything about the subject matter, why the fuck are you posting?

>>64150746
>posts a stone throwing hunting crossbow
implessive

>>64150746
And, to be fair, if you're just making something for hunting it doesn't really matter. But in war it does.
Ironically, composite bows were mostly relegated to hunting in western Europe.

>>64150754
>retard has no argument
Most implessive! Kill yourself immediately.

>>64150773
>posts another hunting crossbow
most implessive!

>>64150773
why would i need an argument against some ahistorical hogwash? "muh steel bows are dumb and bad" lmao

>>64150779
>>64150783

>>64144676 (OP)
Because long limbs make it difficult to fire from embrasures and crossbows in Europe were primarily siege weapons.

>>64144676 (OP)
>If longbows perform so much better than crossbows, why didn't they just build crossbows from longbows?
>Longbows
good for multiple shots in small time frame
very light and mobile
fast to reload
need arm strength greatly
need training for accuracy
long battles not possible due to the fatigue
good for long distances
uses a lot of wood for arrows
arrows are complex to make.
>crossbow
good for single shots
don´t need great strength
even a peasant can use it
slow to reload
great for longest battles in castle and defensive positions
good for short distances
can shoot other stuff like stones, ironballs and other things depending
on situation without much effort.
at short distances can pierce knight metal armors.
bodkin points makes any knight chill with fear.

you just need to understand what each one is for.

>>64144676 (OP)
>why didn't they just build crossbows
cost

longbows outperformed contemporaneous crossbows
the keyword here is "contemporaneous": eventually they developed iron-staved crossbows which had about 15% more power than a longbow, and that was the end of the longbow

but before then, longbows had nearly the same effectiveness and were FAR cheaper
consider that at the time of the longbow's popularity, the 14th century, iron was expensive enough that most farm implements were made of wood, such as spades
better-quality (more expensive) spades were tipped with iron, which was salvaged when the spade broke and affixed to new spades
(remember old fairy tales about losing an axe head? yeah that was serious shit back then)
so at that point, crossbows were probably mostly wooden, perhaps reinforced with small strips of iron, and they would be expensive and wouldn't quite have the same performance of a longbow

when iron became plentiful enough that iron-staved crossbows could be mass produced, longbows were obsoleted

>>64149051
Crossbows in generals tend to be LESS efficient, even if a given crossbow (euro arbalest type) can be VERY powerful. But the energy transmission remains efficient because is a non-modern crossbow and therefore uses certain mechanics.
It is true that by size comparison composite bows are vastly superior to other types of bow. Welsh/English longbow have their own advantages especially in certain climates.
The interesting aspect of the crossbow you posted is the type of projectile (albeit arcuballistas were a thing in western antiquity).

tl:dr and a ching chong wing-wong to you young lady

>>64151217
>remains efficient
*less efficient

>>64144696
FPBP.
You absolutely mogged that retard.
Based.

>>64146303
Koreans also had the tube to shoot short arrows/bolts with. It was probably meant so you could shoot back broken arrows that the enemy fired at you.
>>64148987
It's pretty well known that longbows had better rate of fire, and anything less than a heavily armored knight/soldier would get a serious injury if hit by an arrow from a larger and heavier longbow. I think the saracens had some trouble fighting English formations of longbowmen.

>>64150065
> they needed every advantage they could find
>we are scrapping the barrel therefore our entire army is made out of special forces
listen to yourself you fucking retard. Longbowmen were used because they were cheap and available. They were paid a fraction of what men-at-arms were paid, and the idea of longbowmen being elite unit, and that bows were equivalent to machine guns is just a made up lie spouted so much that anglos started believing themselves, and it costed them dearly. Daily reminder that anglos literally pretend that 16th and 17th century don't exist, gee I wonder why, definitely nothing to do with fact that english armies were getting absolutely mogged, England itself was completely irrelevant, and english were the only European nation to still use a fucking bow in regular units, apart of fucking Tatars, if you count them as Europeans that is. Contemporary English soldiers hated bows, because they were fucking useless.

>>64151296
>longbows were useless when they had been obsoleted by the march of technology
>this must mean longbows were always useless!!
average continental iq

>>64151350
>longbows were useless when they had been obsoleted by the march of technology
like Roman-era crossbows?

>>64151360
>Roman crossbows had the same draw weight as longbows with staves over twice the length of crossbow staves
average continental iq: part deux

>>64151363
>Roman crossbows had the same draw weight as longbows
source? besides your rotten teethed mouth, i mean.

>>64151366
>and now for something completely different: average continental reading comprehension
>same
less, actually

>>64151350
That's not what I said, I claimed it was contemporary English (16th and 17th century) that said that
But well
>noooo stop making fun of bows, so many historically accurate movies like Braveheart taught me that bows were super cool and shit and they were better than musket and shiet
Sorry to burst your bubble, longbows are extremely (katana tier) overrated

>>64151217
>the energy transmission remains efficient because is a non-modern crossbow and therefore uses certain mechanics
The mechanics are no different from that of a bow you brown ESL retard. Half the time it is literally just a bow lashed to the end of a stick. Go back.

>>64151296
>holds an opinion directly counter to reality
>believes that everyone else is retarded
>gets really fucking upset with everyone around him for no particular reason
So . . . are you American? Or French?

>>64151376
>contemporary English (16th and 17th century)
sequel to the spinoff: continental reading comprehension, part two

by the 16th and 17th century iron-staved crossbows had obsoleted the longbow to be sure, but not before

>multilayered cloth and leather jacks will work
it's actually possible, though I'd still prefer to layer mail over that, but if you know anything about medieval clothmaking, that garment would have been pretty damned expensive as well, and so this example of a Duke's and a King's jack, is irrelevant insofar as it applies to regular troops

was your great great great great grandmum Marie Antoinette by any chance? cause your "just eat cake lol" position here might be hereditary, if so

>>64151373
can't you even speak coherently now? pathetic.

>>64151408
>continental reading comprehension: episode iii
the spinoff has achieved trilogy status before TOS!

feel free to disprove me any time by comparing Roman crossbow and medieval English longbow draw weights, by the way

>>64151393
>reality
is this britshitter for real

>>64151414
>feel free to disprove me any time
any time once you provide an ounce of evidence to your claims. you don't expect me to verify your claims for you or fix your crooked teeth, do you?

>>64151417
So you're American, I suppose it would explain the historical illiteracy at least.

>>64151423
feel free to provide anything other than your headcannon any time, once you're done barking at the rest of the world from your shit stained island.

>>64151423
CARE FOR A SPOT OF TEA M8?
SEE THE FOOTY MATCH ON THE TELLY LAST NIGHT? ABSOLUTELY MENTAL THAT WAS

>>64151433
>>64151432
>The American descends into his paranoid wank fantasies as soon as he realises nobody takes him seriously
Keep going, you're funny.

>>64151385
>The mechanics are no different from that of a bow you brown ESL retard. Half the time it is literally just a bow lashed to the end of a stick. Go back.
Absolutely not. I presume you have no education or you are in humanities.
Specifically for the euro-style non-arcuballista crossbow, there is also the issue of the short stroke length and the overall inefficent transfer for the limb rigidity.
The arcuballista ones tend to have a lower poundage. In fact these >>64149051
(chinese ones but same shit) wouldn't do much against mid to late euro armor. Hell, against serbian knights in Ankara even Timur's archers complained.
Even a compound crossbow would have the short stroke issue.

I mean I understand you aren't good with numbers but just compare the poundage vs the bolt and arrow energy.
Crossbows had other advantages.

>you brown ESL retard.
Yeah, I was right this is some ching-chong. Canada?

>>64151442
>paranoid wank fantasies as soon as he realises nobody takes him seriously
you can start providing any evidence any time instead of projecting

>>64151407
I don't care about crossbows, it was not me who claimed that longbows could easily pierce plate armor, and bowmen themselves were super duper delta space marines. While
>longbows were better than early modern firearms
argument didn't yet appear in this thread, they pretty much always do, so it was pre-emptive strike on my part.
>your great great great great
and was your ancestor from some nation of island primitives, that used bows into 17th century, because you take it a little bit too personal.

>A breefe discourse, concerning the force and effect of all manuall weapons of fire and the disability of the long bowe or archery, in respect of others of greater force now in vse. With sundrye probable reasons for the verrifying therof: the which I haue doone of dutye towards my soueraigne and country, and for the better satisfaction of all such as are doubtfull of the same.
>t, Humfrey Barwick (1592)

>>64151422
>take bow
>turn it sideways
>shorter draw length
>magically gains POWER!! EXTREME!!
average continental iq: the final chapter?

Tod's late Roman compound crossbow reconstruction goes only up to 100lbs maximum; shorter bolts also limit the kinetic energy of the final impact
Mary Rose bows averaged 110lbs up to 175lbs of theoretical draw weight; 150lbs was not unheard of in other sources, plus the additional weight and power of a 28-inch draw

seethe and cope lmao

>>64151471
>you take it a little bit too personal
only with retards peddling revisionist bullshit
and I'm not even British lmao

>posts more late 16th century sources despite already having been called out
you're behaving like a vatnik with the firehose of falsehood

>>64151500
>Tod's late Roman compound crossbow reconstruction goes only up to 100lbs maximum
it's not a reconstruction, it's a wall hanger toy. any actual evidence?

>>64151500
>and I'm not even British lmao
i somehow knew it

>>64151500
>you're behaving like a vatnik with the firehose of falsehood
>nooo stop using primal sources, modern media knows better than contemporary soldiers
And America, to surprise of noone, is part of fucking anglo culture and all of them fully embrace 1000 times pounded warbows
I believe now it's your turn to elaborate on
>longbowmen were elites of the elite 150 years of training could totally pierce steel armour

>>64151507
>it's not a reconstruction, it's a wall hanger toy
it's a working bow meant to be used, you sperging nutjob

>>64151512
speak for yourself
I'm probably whiter than you are

now go away, you've been comprehensively defeated

>>64151541
>it's a working bow meant to be used
lmao

>>64151540
>could totally pierce steel armour
shitty steel and iron armour, definitely
that's precisely WHY better-curved and harder steel plate continued to be developed

>>64151545
>no argument
go away, shitskin

>>64151541
>I'm probably
>probably

>>64151550
what argument do you expect from me when you claim that a fiberglass wall hanger is a historically accurate reconstruction?
>shitskin
lmao, you've been exposed as a metiszo de macaco de castano

>>64151446
>>64151500
>>64151541
>>64151550
What causes brown ESLs to shit up the board with 20 different posts about some random topic that they have never even bothered to google?

>>64151540
>longbowmen were elites of the elite
and just for the record, no, they weren't
I've always maintained that English bowmen were mainly peasants, or impoverished nobles (or ex-nobles), because that's what the records showed: they had civilian jobs.

certain continental retards of course always maintained they were professional mercenaries
takes the sting out of losing to farmers, I guess

>>64151561
>fiberglass
trying too hard
you know you can literally buy crossbows at his site? and see from photos that they're wood and iron

anyway, you've shown by all this that you're just sperging and not interested in the academic truth

>>64151581
trying way WAY too hard

>>64151584
>you know you can literally buy crossbows at his site? and see from photos that they're wood and iron
"Modern linen covered composite bow" from his website

brown friend must've felt lost on a white person's website, just like he's feeling lost itt

>>64151595
>https://todsworkshop.com/collections/historical-crossbows/products/10th-11thc-crossbow

the only question now is whether you're shitskin, or wrong color by mistake

>>64151607
>10th-11thc-crossbow
why did you shift away from his roman crossbow, paco? did you get distracted taking a shit outside in the meantime?

>>64151447
>PrOvE mE wRoNg!!!!!1111
You have to prove, or at least try to prove, that you're not retarded before that becomes just 'bad argument' rather than being completely pathetic, as it is/you are at the moment.

>>64151581
it's like dunning-krueger but on national level, with too much lead in bloodstream and too low iq to ever figure they shouldn't be talking

You illiterate retards need to read some fucking books instead of talking out of your ass.

>>64151581
So you basically admit that you are chinese and wrong.
Thank you for the sincerity anon.

oh, and for people who are actually interested in the subject, rather than a pack of lies, this is a European nobleman's crossbow dated to about 1460. composite wood and horn with a comparably short stave of 25 inches. incomparable in length with a 70-inch yew longbow, even being able to shoot -15% in performance was arguably a feat of technology as it is.

>>64151615
>roman crossbow
why bother, when the subject was medieval crossbows? I did you a favour and gave you the later 11th century spec, just to show that even that wouldn't have been enough

>>64151627
Why are you answering to yourself, ching chong?
What about addressing the observations about the stroke length, for one?
Oh right - you cannot.

>For example, a 150-pound (68 kg) draw crossbow with an 11-inch (280 mm) powerstroke can shoot a 400-grain (26 g) arrow at 205 ft/s (62 m/s), while a 150-pound draw crossbow with a 12-inch (300 mm) powerstroke can shoot a 400 gr (26 g) arrow at 235 ft/s (72 m/s). This translates into a 14.6% increase in power for every 9% increase in powerstroke.[94] Thus, if other factors are equal, a standard Han dynasty crossbow with a ≈387-pound (176 kg) draw weight and a 20–21-inch (510–530 mm) powerstroke would have comparable levels of power to a medieval European crossbow with a 1,200-pound (540 kg) draw weight and a 6–7-inch (150–180 mm) powerstroke.[95][96]
brownbros... our response?

>>64151664
My response is that you and the person that wrote that have no understanding of momentum.

>>64151661
The draw length that is, thanks to a superior trigger design, between 2-4x longer on Asian crossbows? 20"+ compared to 4 or 5"?
That draw length?

>>64144850
>Most other types of bows were better
>well how about these niche outliers
If you think that you have absolutely no idea what made the English longbow good.

>>64151250
>>64146303
>Koreans also had the tube to shoot short arrows/bolts with. It was probably meant so you could shoot back broken arrows that the enemy fired at you.
No they also made special short arrows. Shorter arrows are lighter and therefore faster, while been shorter they have proportionally less drag. They were for long range fire and larger amount of carried arrows. Idea of flight arrow min maxed to eleven.

>>64151664
>>64150806

>>64151657
>why bother
because you brought it up, lol.
>I did you a favour and gave you the later 11th century spec
you mean another toy?

>>64151664
>a standard Han dynasty crossbow with a ≈387-pound (176 kg) draw weight and a 20–21-inch (510–530 mm) powerstroke
who composes this shit? chinks must've been so high on bat manure they were out of their minds

>>64151620
>the brownoid is also a redditor
color me surprised

>>64151672
>thanks to a superior trigger design
there's nothing superior about it, lmao

>>64151707
>hurr durr IT'S JUST A TOY!!1!
feel free to find reputable sources for wooden medieval European crossbows with higher draw weights then

Even Southern Euros figured out composite bows. Why couldn't the ingerlish figure it out??

>>64151746
>feel free to find reputable sources for wooden medieval European crossbows with higher draw weights then
sure. here's an actual historical reproduction with 390lb draw weight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaGCrv4LyUQ

>>64151761
that doesn't count o algo

>>64151664
>387-pound (176 kg) draw weight and a 20–21-inch (510–530 mm) powerstroke
that's a crew-served weapon cause ain't no way any single human is pulling that
you know what's wrong with this silly table?
I've highlighted it

>>64151768
did the brownoid short circuit?

>>64151761
lol
lmao

I mean, sure, have fun trying to cock that by yourself anyway

>>64151786
just an attempt to samefag, that's all

>>64151792
>I mean, sure, have fun trying to cock that by yourself anyway
you wanted a heavier wooden bow, i gave it to you. now you're moving goalposts further.
here's another reconstruction with a draw weight of 276lbs, that even a fat old guy can like him can draw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjDnHU9LQII

>>64151775
>>64151792
>enters crossbow thread with no knowledge on crossbows
>shits up the entire thread arguing about it
based retards

>>64151672
>thanks to a superior trigger design,
lmao

>>64151832
>read "spanning device" right there, ignored it
>thought he found a gotcha
>hurr durr based retards durr
sure, if you want to make the concession that a cocking device would have been necessary, by all means
that's one of the stated advantages of the longbow: no such device needed

>>64151735
>>64151839
nogunz tard alert

>>64151857
>posts inferior chink design
implessive

>>64151804
>draw weight of 276lbs
>that even a fat old guy can like him can draw.
sitting down, with his entire body
and to achieve?
>200m range
>51m/s
>43g bolt
meanwhile Tod used a 120lb longbow to throw a 64g arrow at 58m/s
I'm sure you can do the math

I can't find Tod's range experiments, but this guy did, and his 110lb longbow hit 250 yards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HagCuGXJgUs

show's over; longbow supremacy confirmed

>>64151927
>sitting down, with his entire body
that's how crossbows were drawn. it's their big advantage. did you not know even this, shitskin?

>>64151936
kek, I'll take that concession.

>>64151945
yeah, not the first time you've gone back on an argument after being completely wrong.

>>64151960
well, I was certainly wrong in thinking that one-man wooden crossbows of higher draw weight did not exist in the high medieval period
but I was not wrong in knowing that their inherent inefficiencies meant that longbows still comfortably outranged them

the point is, longbow superior crossbow inferior, nonetheless

>>64151927
crossbows weren't mass produced in china because they were stronger

they were easier to use with little finesse

the shorter bolts couldn't be fired back without a crossbow

the denser bolts meant re-using them was better

the shorter the bolts meant they didn't flex when they strike a target, allowing certain armor types to be penetrated more often

crossbows were used with terrain and barricades, and often shoulder to shoulder in fortifications, a tall bow was harder to use in such confinement

>>64151850
>longbow
The comparison was with a 1200lb draw weight European CROSSBOW, which also obviously required a device to draw.

You wouldn't need half that much weight to outperform an English war bow.

>>64151976
>but I was not wrong in knowing that their inherent inefficiencies meant that longbows still comfortably outranged them
you don't know anything, you're just making shit up and cherrypicking anything that fits your babble.

go back to your reddit shithole, shitskin

>>64151999
>FIRE EVERYTHING!!1!
desperate, aren't we?

>>64152013
desperate to deflect from your slimy reddit mannerisms and your subhuman shitstained nigger mutt genetics, yes you are.

>>64148987
>The entire mythos of the longbow hinges on glorifying one single individual battle the English won
Do you mean the battle of Crecy (1346), where the English longbowmen beat the enemy crossbowmen by shooting much faster, and then the losing crossbowmen blamed the rain? Was it the battle of Poitiers (1356), where 10,000 British troops stopped two cavalry charges with longbows and captured the French king afterwards? Perhaps you mean the Battle of Agincourt (1415), where the British were outnumbered 3-1 and still came out on top. Let us know which battle you thought was the "one battle."

Its definitely not like the English longbow was adopted when the British saw how effective the Welsh longbowmen were when they were defending their territory from the Anglos and the Normans (sarcasm). The British definitely didn't use those Welsh longbowmen to bully Scotland afterwards (sarcasm).

>>64151180
>the keyword here is "contemporaneous": eventually they developed iron-staved crossbows which had about 15% more power than a longbow, and that was the end of the longbow
Bullshit, Longbows were used alongside muskets; iron-staved crossbows were not the end of the longbow.

>>64152070
>>64152092
you're samefagging now too, redditnigger?

>>64151857
There is an easily triggered ching-chong in /k/ are you that one, anon?

>>64150783
Steel bows are good for logistics but insanely inefficient

>>64150806
Why not just orient the limbs vertically then?

>>64152240
Its a good way to risk peasant mcsteve getting a supersanic uppercut from one of the limbs

>>64152092
>Longbows were used alongside muskets; iron-staved crossbows were not the end of the longbow
yeah bows were used all the way until the 19th century by First Nations or whatever the fuck we're supposed to call them now; so fucking what

>>64144676 (OP)
because you'd have a crossbow that performs no better than a longbow, retard. At most it would be more convenient in some ways.

>>64152269
>yeah bows were used all the way until the 19th century by First Nations or whatever the fuck we're supposed to call them now; so fucking what
Are you illiterate? You called it the end of the longbow when it wasn't, and I pointed it out.

>>64152293
>ackshually, technically
Fine, go on then.

>>64152270
As compared to a regular crossbow which performs worse than a longbow and is more inconvenient in some ways?

>>64152325
I doubt that.
A crossbow lobs a fucking heavy bolt with a lot more energy and momentum such that it will penetrate armor that an arrow will not.
Also a crossbow does not depend on the availability of wood, most often yew, in the quantity and quality as do longbows. The anglofag longbow obsession has decimated yew populations throughout europe.

>>64152336
>A crossbow lobs a fucking heavy bolt with a lot more energy and momentum such that it will penetrate armor that an arrow will not
see >>64151927

IIRC the significantly longer stave of the longbow means it's more efficient for the draw weight
I know blumineck said something about this in passing but I'm not sure what the math is behind all that

you need several multiples more draw weight for a crossbow to match a longbow, and for that you need powerful composite or iron staves and cocking devices
the longbow probably had its heyday before those were in common use

>>64152360
Have you looked at that picture? Its a generic limb on a stick. In this case my secondary argument holds up: It's ressource efficient. This guy got jist any hazel staff or random bullshit and made it D shaped or whatever. Meanwhile spring steel and shit blows everything out of the water in terms. of ballistic performance. Maybe there's some wooden versions that perform very well too.

>>64152378
>This guy got jist any hazel staff or random bullshit and made it D shaped or whatever
it's a reconstruction based on measurements from what might be an early 13th century English crossbow
I THINK it's made from yew
the point is even a 120lb longbow outperforms this reconstructed wooden crossbow. 150lb bows weren't uncommon.

>Meanwhile spring steel and shit blows everything out of the water in terms. of ballistic performance
I quite agree, and from about the late 14th century on crossbows were increasingly made with iron staves, which is what finally gave them a conclusive edge in raw power over the longbow
but here's the thing: iron was relatively rare in the high medieval era
we know this because at around the same time (late 14th), wooden and iron-bladed farming implements were separately recorded, and we can see their relative scarcity and value

therefore, longbows had a definite use case in this era, because you could muster many more bowmen equipped with all-wooden bows than you could muster crossbowmen equipped with iron-staved bows

>>64152461
>measurement
Are you that dense? You knoe how bows are made, right?
>Yew
Might be can't tell from the sapwood. Again: You do have an understanding how bows are made, right?
You're looking at natural materials. You dont take 'a piece of wood of the correct species' and 'shape it according to measurements' and end up. with a performing bow. If he did the same for the longbow he compares it against it would be stupid but fair.
>120 lbs bow
>150 lbs bow
Well hsve fun shooting a 150 lbs bow and also again: He is comparing what seems to be amateurish and uninformed shit or perhaps even bad faith shit to figures from documented well made bows.
At any rate. It remains a wooden bow. There probably are limits to that.
>Iron staves
they were steel. Neither ectual iron (elemental) nor colloquial 'iron' as in cast, low melting point, would make anything useable.
>Iron was rare
So was wood. Especially quality wood. Forests in europe, back then, were used much more intensively than they are now. People didn't have much food or heat, they needed to get as kuch out of every bit of their surroundings as they could. I've mentioned yew being almost extinct after the english bow craze.
>gave them an edge
there you have it
cheaper, easier to produce with less skill and more dependable, controlable raw material which yiu dont have to wait for but can extract at the rate you work for it. Pretty much the story of modern industry. Not a coincidence.
>farming implements
do you understand how many were peasants and how many hed weaponry? there's no comparisson here. For once you're again creating false equality of 'wood'. 'Wood' is not wood. They'd use whatever hardwood for a rake because it did the job. It would not make a bow nor crossbow. Youre also creaging some sort of false relation between farm implements and weapons. There was a member of royalty who would have their seat in a castle, this castle was defended, if needed, by a handful of men who used weapins held in the(...

>>64152549
...) castle for that occassion. The same lord and castle would draw from countless of peasants working the expanse around it. You're talking vast numbers of farm implements per one weapon. Those weapons belonged to a lords estate. Peasamts would have a nail to their name if anything.
So
>>64152461
you literally answered it yourself towards the end:
Use a bow. It's economical and does the job. But for that occassional armor that can not be penetrated use a crossbow, which is more expensive but only it can do this job.

>>64152360
>the significantly longer stave of the longbow means it's more efficient for the draw weight
It's not. Longer limbs are less efficient for the same poundage. Energy spent moving limbs around is energy not transferred into the arrow. All else being equal, the shorter bow will be faster.

>>64152378
>spring steel and shit blows everything out of the water in terms. of ballistic performance
Steel is dogshit, it has horrible efficiency. Where the fuck did you get this idea from?
>made it D shaped
...

>>64152070
In all battles you mentioned combat went into melee, and were decided by melee combat. and English archers were covered by dismounted English knights.

This is what happens when wundervaffen longbows meat knights without been protected by knights themselves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Patay

>>64152240
Bolt would fall out if you turn crossbow sideways.

>>64152336
>The anglofag longbow obsession has decimated yew populations throughout europe.
It's didn't stop longbows from remaining very cheap weapons, longbow costed like price of 5 bolts or 5 arquebuse shots.

>>64152650
so the main cost was in ammo and good arrows weren't cheap or easy to make

>>64152620
>wundervaffen longbows
And here we see the retarded non-Anglo mentality in play.
>it must be the bows

>>64152633
Hold it in place with a clip (or your hand)

>>64152606
>D shaped
I didnt watch that guy or someone make itand I have made it clear that its a likely vut worst case scenario
>Steel is dogshit
sure
which is why almost every spring is made from steel and other than edge cases as good as never from wood
>>64152650
5 bolts
sure
If you want to discount materials its man hours that set the price
go figure
also the goalpost is constantly moving here
crom why even ever have a crossbow at all (it penetrates what bows dont penetrate) to which is more economical, more efficient etc.
as if you had bpd and troops back then could only ever either have exclusively one or the other n shit

>>64152620
>melee
>archers
>knights
Yeah, that's how medieval warfare went. Congrats. By the logic that combined arms existed therefore bows didn't matter, your beloved crossbow was also irrelevant.

>>64152850
>crom why even ever have a crossbow at all (it penetrates what bows dont penetrate) to which is more economical, more efficient etc.
because it's much easier to shoot, it's more accurate, it can be shot and reloaded from cover, etc.

subhuman ESL dipshit

>>64152999
>By the logic that combined arms existed therefore bows didn't matter
the very concept of combined arms confuses and scares the brownoid

>>64149875
why would you connect the sight post to the trigger and seer
why have it move at all

>>64145194
NTA but you overestimate how many years it takes to blindly volley. You can train a bunch of amateurs today to blindly fill the air with arrows instead of pinpoint aiming much more easily.

>>64153135
You gotta be good at estimating range for a blind volley on a battlefield, and you have to build up stamina and very specific muscle groups to fire a bow continuously for several hours. Longbowmen can actually be identified by their skeletons because their forearms change shape.

>>64153195
>to fire a bow continuously for several hours
I don't think that's possible considering the logistics of arrows.

>>64151407
>16th and 17th century
>crossbows
By that time no one gave a shit about any kind of bow, cross or not, anymore. Only guns mattered now.

>>64153315
It is, and there are lots of records of it happening in battles.

>>64144676 (OP)
This picture is incredibly sexy

>>64151775
Clearly not crew weapons, those are bed crossbows. The draw weights of Han era crossbows have long been attested, there are Juyan fortress bamboo/wooden strips from the Sino-Swedish expedition with the 6 stone(387lb) crossbow being the most commonplace.

>>64149051
Euro crossbows had a very short draw length because they needed narrow bows to be carried inside buildings and shot trough small wall openings.

Since the draw length was shortened so much they needed high power bows, made out of steel to compensate.

The Chinese crossbows didn't have this problem and were as efficient as bows but they were intended to be used outside, they wouldn't have been very useful on European battlefields.

>>64149611
What makes the best longbow special is that they're made of selected yew saves, in which you keep both the sap and heartwood which makes it a natural composite.

>>64153315
Of course it is. During Roman times, look up the Battle of Carrhae. Marcus Licinius Crassus decided to get in defensive formation and wait for the enemy to run out of arrows; from morning to nightfall, the enemy never did. After he surrendered, he realized that the archers and horse archers kept getting ammo refills from the ancient period war carriages.

The dude was the weakest general in Caesar's triumvirate. He set out to prove he was better than Pompey and was easily defeated. The battle of Agincourt mentioned earlier was another example of archers firing for hours. Just as the French heavy infantry was about to turn the tide of the battle, the French nobles ordered them back so that they could send the cavalry in and claim credit for the victory themselves. However, due to the mud and uneven terrain, the cavalry were easy pickings for the British longbowmen, and they won the day.

>>64151682
>composite bows used the world over
>niche outlier
Fuck off faggot

>>64151682
>English longbow
Is just a longbow. The oldest and simplest kind of bow. What makes it good is it was cheap.

>>64153673
What made it good was the 'encouragement' (requirement) of ownership and training one day per week among the male population that churned out a constant stream of practiced and semi-professional archers for England's armies. Anyone else could have got similar results if they'd been prepared to commit their societies to Longbow training - but they mostly didn't.

>>64153963
>similar results
Losing the only war they were relevant in?

>>64145194
>>64144676 (OP)
>>64150065

cringe. they are tactically comparable units. Bow practice is overrated. English used bows because they had periphery influence in the less developed Celtic fringe. Thats the primary reason.

Longbow effectiveness in HYW is down to superior English semi-national army structure compared to french feudal structure.

>>64153963
they could have got similar results with crossbows. what was important was the government mandated semi-professionalism.

>>64153973
>Losing the only war they were relevant in?
They were relevant in many battles from 3000 BC to the 1100s, and every battle Britain was in from the 1100s to the 1600s lol. If you knew any history rather than just asking ChatGPT, then you'd know that.

>>64154412
No, they were a weapon used by random skirmishers nobody cared about in every war ever. They were relevant in one war. That was lost.

>>64154438
>"They were used but it doesn't count! Wah! Wah!"
On second thought, you can go back to ChatGPT. Your responses were less retarded then.

>>64154507
>can't read
>gets mad about it
yes anon, the longbow was nothing special. The English tried to make it special, and failed.

>>64154511
>The English tried to make it special, and failed.
Yes, they only went from being ruled by the French to having the largest empire this planet has ever known. Those poor Brits failed so hard, anon. You definitely aren't a seething brownoid, right? LOL

>>64154575
Buttblasted latino larping as a WASP lol

When they used longbows they STILL were ruled by the french

>>64154575
>Yes, they only went from being ruled by the French to having the largest empire this planet has ever known.
Right, so we're back to that thing from yesterday where you don't seem to understand when the British Empire was, and when the English tried and failed to make the longbow relevant was. The two have nothing to do with eachother. How would you feel if you didn't have breakfast this morning?

>wtf no obviously the grosse messer was superior to the arming sword, how else would the Prussian army have defeated the French Empire and unified Germany, becoming the preeminent military power in continental Europe?

>>64153983
>Physics doesn't real!
American education confirmed.

>>64155057
>implying Europeans are allowed to learn physics
LMAO

>>64154575
Britain was still a backwater shit hole nobody cared about when they ditched the last longbow in the bin of history

>>64152999
>combined arms
This is not how britbongs present their wundervaffen

>However, due to the mud and uneven terrain, the cavalry were easy pickings for the British longbowmen,
>Hurr durr they just shot them all!
Well they didn't. in all battles french knights mounted or dismountd reached english positions despite been at large terrain disadvantage and its melee with English knights that decided battle.

When no knights to save their ass, *puff* longbow medieval machine gun wundervaffen stops working.

>>64144676 (OP)
That's called a ballista
Oh and also they cooked up essentially MLRS's in the 1500s too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha

>>64153315
it is, with the caveat that your archers are shooting like once per minute because shooting a bow is very physically demanding and ammo is not infinite

>>64153361
>The draw weights of Han era crossbows have long been attested
attested by consuming meth in ridiculous quantities, you mean? LMAO