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[GenJeFT]

Longbows were definetely not like "air superiority". I could bring any number of battles where the french heavy cav completely destroyed the typical longbow army because it wasn't ensconsed in it's usual defensible position.

I still stand by the comparison that archer superiority at the time was like air superiority today.

How well do you think an aircraft on the ground would perform against a tank? Armored knights being the medieval tank.

Archers, cause disorder and chaos in the ranks as they advance, breaking up the army more by chaos then actual casualties, much like the effect of airpower in modern times.

Armored knights pack the punch and cause the casualties, much like modern tanks.

An airforce cannot defeat an army by itself, much like archers cannot defeat an army by themselves. They can only disorder it and weaken it to allow for other parts (such as the tanks of modern times or knights of old) to strike the knockout blow.

[AWdeV]

Crossbows became popular because it's much easier to train someone in its use. You'd need years of training for a good archer but an explanation of the point-and-click mechanism and your lance fodder is good to go. Pope even banned them for a while IIRC because it was unchristian to shoot knights with the things.

Ofcourse, the monetary advantage is kinda lost when you need ever stronger and more complicated crossbows to kill your foes with. This probably ties in with the growth of companies of mercenary crossbowmen. They had the time and the money to keep their crossbows in shape as well as perform drills and generally be ready for war.

The English used longbowmen because that's what they had. They already had them ever since the Assize of Arms so they could field a large number of them. And if you have them, why not use them? A peasant with a longbow and the skill to use it is more useful than a peasant without.

[Vanaheimer]

I shouldn't have to explain this, but...

Flatter trajectory. The faster the arrow moves, the less it will arc. That means you don't need to be as good to hit something. Also, range.

If you think a 100-200 pound draw bow won't go through steel armour, I suggest you go find a longbow with about 150 pound draw and fire it a few times. You'll be quite surprised at how hard it is, and how powerful it is. With that kind of draw weight I'd feel fairly safe shooting through a car door.

You're not hitting anything at any appreciable range (ie the kind where 300lb wouldn't give flat enough trajectory) with either bow or crossbow unless you luck out.

As for car doors, they don't come with angles specifically designed to deflect arrows. Besides, car doors have been known to stop *bullets*, so I think you're a bit overconfident about that bow of yours. Or do you think that an arrow has more penetrating power than a 9mm?

HAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA

A car door won't stop a bullet unless it's been armoured. I have shot cars before, with handguns, and the bullet will go straight through the door and then go out the other door most of the time. A door would slow down an arrow, but a good arrow fired from a powerful bow will still kill you through one. If it didn't outright kill you, you'd be very likely to crash. Arrows hurt far more than bullets.

As far as accuracy goes, the *minimum* range for archery targets in old England was 220 yards. 2 and a fifth football fields. That's an appreciable distance. 300 yards was not unheard of. An exceptionally powerful crossbow could fire even farther in good hands.

[Gukag]

Except longbowmen without their usual anti-cav defences, i.e the pointed stakes they drove into the ground (not even talking about other branches of the army here, like infantry or cavalry acting in supporting roles), are basically like grounded airplanes in your analogy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Patay

"In this battle, the English attempted to use the same tactics it had in the victorious battles of Crécy in 1346, Poitiers in 1356, and Agincourt in 1415. These tactics called for having extensive numbers of longbowmen defended by sharpened stakes driven into the ground in front of their army, the stakes slowing and hampering a cavalry assault while the longbowmen massacred the enemy. However, in the Battle of Patay, the French knights were finally able to catch the English unprepared.

No other country in Europe used the longbow as extensively as England. Although the weapon itself was relatively inexpensive to produce, it was difficult to amass a large pool of trained bowmen: constant practice was required to develop the skills and muscle power needed to use the longbow effectively. In order to ensure a sufficient number of skilled longbowmen, the English government required yeomen and peasants to train with their bows regularly. The large number of longbowmen the English could field as a result of this policy gave them a great military advantage during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Longbowmen had a serious weakness, however: due to their light armor (or complete lack thereof), they were at a distinct disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat when faced with armored men-at-arms. At Patay, the French army took advantage of this crucial weakness.

Longbowmen were never intended to fight armoured knights unsupported except from prepared positions where the knights could not charge them, and they were massacred."

The defensive preparations necessary to use the longbowmen volleys effectively were incredibly decisive.

[Trif]

The lesson here: you have to catch keas by surprise, or otherwise they'll murder your crossbowdwarfs because menacing wooden spikes wouldn't hamper them at all.

[GenJeFT]

Except longbowmen without their usual anti-cav defences, i.e the pointed stakes they drove into the ground (not even talking about other branches of the army here, like infantry or cavalry acting in supporting roles), are basically like grounded airplanes in your analogy.

Yes.

I also never once said longbowmen were like air supiriority, I said ARCHERY was like air supriority.

In most of the battles the English won they had overwhelming archery superiority. Archery superiority at the time was much like air superiority today.

I still stand by the comparison that archer superiority at the time was like air superiority today.

Archery includes all hand held ranged weapons (including crossbows) up untill guns and artillery enters the field, not just longbows. If the French were able to get archery superiority over the English longbowmen using the crossbows the tables would have been turned.

Basicaly

archers = medieval equivlent to modern air support

infantry = infantry (its role has never changed, occupy ground, and mop up)

knights = medieval equivlent to tanks, charge and destroy.

None works well on its own.

[dreiche2]

it's always the same, right? Mention longbows, and people will argue about how mind blowingly good they were and some people will go "surely they were good but they weren't as good as everyone seems to think" and then it'll go on and on for 300 pages.

Same deal with katanas as well.

You know what would be seriously useful? Having a sticky topic that summarises opinions on the discussion topics that come up over and over again and usually lead nowhere; including links to the example threads. Then close any new threads unless people can show that they bring something new to the table or there is a novel development that relates.

Examples would be, ASCII vs. tilesets (community opinion is mostly 'each to their own', while a minority likes to attack an imaginary opposite 'side'), longbows vs. crossbows vs. armour (no consensus was ever found), danger rooms (same as with ASCII vs. tilesets), and so forth....

[Corai]

WHERE THE HELL DID THIS COME FROM?

[King DZA]

Why don't we all just agree that the overall effectiveness of almost any weapon is determined in large part by the skill of the individual using it?

[se5a]

ohoh what about slings!
we currently don't have those either do we?

you can run the same argument with slings vs throwing spears as longbows vs crossbows.

[nukularpower]

@ the Agincourt/Crecy talk a few pages back:  Hardly an effective comparison of crossbows vs longbows as the French refused to allow their (peasant) crossbowmen to even engage due to the fact that it would take 'glory' away from the knights :p

[psychologicalshock]

6 shots? Boy, you need to learn the thumb draw and quick draw.
Skip to 1:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqqStGeYsj8

Have you ever *shot* a high power long bow? Not a recurve bow, a proper English LONG BOW. They average draw weight is about 120-150 pounds. A good archer might get off ten shots a minute, but not for long. In proper war, if you got off 6 a minute you were considered amazing.

We're talking about bows with a higher draw weight than some people weigh. They are no laughing matter. My hunting bow is around 80 pound draw and it'll kill a bear.

It's worth noting that heavy crossbows could have a draw weight way larger than those numbers , reason being that they had a crank so you could store a lot of potential energy into it, the strongest arbalest could store 22 KILO(!!!) Newtons of force and be fired at a range of a kilometer. Marksmen  did actually exist in medieval times - people with exceptional vision mostly (since optics weren't common).

[Loud Whispers]

Same deal with katanas as well.

Katanas were in a field of their own, it's like comparing a warhammer to an axe, and saying they're the same thing.

[masquerine]

Bow, crossbow, javelin or any other ranged weapon all has the same benefit of distance. It doesn't really matter what you shoot or throw at the enemies in Dwarf Fortress if you can do so from an elevated or fortified position. The end result is the same: things peppered with projectiles. The more things throwing/shooting projectiles, the better your chances of securing kills or severely disabling your enemies. I do absolutely love when the entire landscape is littered with a rain of projectiles. Even more so when the only target was a single raven and they fired 500+ bolts at it. Dwarves care not for accuracy! MAKE IT RAIN!

I tend to favor crossbows because I can add bayonets to them (masterwork mod). It'll at least give the crossbow squad a chance at survival if something manages to engage upon them. Bashing with crossbows isn't very effective with unskilled and wooden/bone crossbows (temporary until metal production is up and running). Add a pointy sharp object to them and that could score a lucky hit.

[se5a]

I'm tempted to do a ranged weapons mod:

Longbows - good range good damage good firerate
Reflex Bows - average range average damage good firerate
Recurve Bows - good range good damage good fire rate
Crossbow - better range better damage average fire rate
Heavy Crossbow - great range great damage low fire rate
Repeater Crossbow - good range low damage good fire rate
Sling - good range low damage good fire rate
Javelin - low range great damage low fire rate

something like that... give crossbows slightly better acuracy for low skill levels
not really sure of the limitations of modding since I've not done any modding in DF before. starting to get more and more tempted to do so though.