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[Mikademus]

What happens when your foot lodges itself in the wound?

Hilarity ensues?

[Valandor]

You lose your shoe when whatever you kicked runs away

Or you get dragged off

Or you lose your foot

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Or you get dragged off

I like this option the best.

[Soadreqm]

And crossbows don't have kickback, they pull forwards and down when fired.

What? Why? According to my trusty high school physics book they really should have kickback. Not necessarily much, but they should have it. Newton's third law of motion. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As the string pushes the bolt forward, the bolt pushes the string (and the rest of the crossbow) backward.

Oh, and I don't advocate the idea really heavy crossbows designed for bashing. Adding a bayonet, maybe. I'm not sure how useful they are, but real life ranged weapons do have them. Anyway, since a single crossbow bolt can already mince all your internal organs, magic bullet style, making them even more dangerous might not be the most balanced idea ever.

[Draco18s]

And crossbows don't have kickback, they pull forwards and down when fired.

What? Why? According to my trusty high school physics book they really should have kickback. Not necessarily much, but they should have it. Newton's third law of motion. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As the string pushes the bolt forward, the bolt pushes the string (and the rest of the crossbow) backward.

You need to get out more.  Bows and crossbows have no kickback because all of the "push" the bolt or arrow puts on the string is taken up by the fact that it's far far lighter.  Force = Mass * Acceleration.

The reason a GUN has a kick BACK is because you're making a small explosion inside the firing chamber which pushes in all directions: fires the bullet out one end and kicked the butt of the gun into your shoulder.

With a bow you would never notice any kickback because your arm is providing all of the force already, the release of that tention far outweighs any push the arrow might have against you.

[Align]

But with crossbows you just pull a trigger and then the tensed string flings the bolt, right? Seems like it would be more prone to recoil.

[Derakon]

You need to get out more.  Bows and crossbows have no kickback because all of the "push" the bolt or arrow puts on the string is taken up by the fact that it's far far lighter.  Force = Mass * Acceleration.

The reason a GUN has a kick BACK is because you're making a small explosion inside the firing chamber which pushes in all directions: fires the bullet out one end and kicked the butt of the gun into your shoulder.

Taking a bow+arrow as a closed system, when you launch the arrow out one end, the bow will go in the other direction. Mass and velocity determine the degree of kickback, but if you tossed a pebble off of a space station, the station would experience a small recoil.

Recoil is large for guns because of the large velocity of the bullet, regardless of how that velocity is achieved. If you had a gun that fired by using a very strong rubber band that got the same bullet velocity as gunpowder gets you, it'd have the same net kickback as a traditional gun. You can reduce the instantaneous kickback (i.e. the amount of force you receive at any given time) by accelerating the projectile gradually; this is where the explosion matters, because the bullet gets all of its velocity in a minute fraction of a second, so all of the recoil is generated in the same amount of time. The launch of an arrow, on the flip side, is comparatively slower. Your body still absorbs a large amount of force (arrows could easily be heavier than bullets, especially handgun bullets, but they tend to have lower velocities), but if it's over a longer period of time, you don't notice so much.

[Tamren]

Greh. Kickback is the sudden spike of force when you pull the trigger. Kickback for guns is especially bad and can cause you to lose control and the barrel to climb. Crossbows do not have this problem unless very poorly made. The "barrel" of the crossbow WILL jerk back and up but this has no effect on repeat shots because crossbows are not automatic firearms.

RECOIL on the other hand is the second side of the force equation. The first being the projectile your weapon is pushing against, the second being the weapon in your hand the projectile is pushing against. It is not possible to construct a gun or crossbow or bow without recoil.

Whether or not the recoil can be absorbed is another matter entirely and depends on the weapon and user.

[Draco18s]

Taking a bow+arrow as a closed system, when you launch the arrow out one end, the bow will go in the other direction.

Excuse me, but I've USED a bow.  It most certainly does not.  If anything the extra tension pulls the bow away from you.

Now, if you want to start doing frictionless tests on something like this, then yes, your body would get pushed ever slightly backwards when firing a bow due to the lack of resistance (i.e. feet on the ground), but this is not the same as kickback/recoil.

If you had a gun that fired by using a very strong rubber band that got the same bullet velocity as gunpowder gets you, it'd have the same net kickback as a traditional gun.

If your arm wasn't holding the other end of the rubber band, then yes...if your arm is holding both ends of the rubber band, the kickback "goes away" do to the release of tension.  Try using a bow sometime: it hurts more to not-fire a bow that it does to let go.

[Derakon]

I wasn't talking about how it feels to use a weapon; I was just talking basic physics. And basic physics says that when you eject something from a closed system, the system gets a force pushing in the opposite direction. It says nothing about how the ejection is achieved or the state of the system prior to launching the object.

I have used a bow, way back in middle school, and I know it takes strength to keep the bow from firing. But there's also a certain amount of effort that must be expended to keep you from tipping over when you fire. It's a small enough amount of effort that you don't notice it (especially if you've braced properly), but it is there. It has to be.

[Porpoisepower]

Release of force is instananeous,  The time it takes for objects to overcome their inirtia however will vary... 

The curve of a bow and tension of the string result in forces  towards the center of balance between the bow and string.  The forces requiered to counter these forces and pull the string are immense.  (Those English Longbowmen that were trained to pull 100lbs consistently had massive deformatives in their spine due to the efforts neccessary.)

The sudden release of pressure kills any kick that would be feel. Since the archer is exerting so much force to ready the fire. The lack of such force kills any net recoil.

However, the forces to keep a crossbow cocked are all selfcontained in the cross bow, so their might be a noticeable kick. I'll ask a friend who has one.

In any case the Energy of the kick is mass times speed squared... and bullets go a quite bit faster than arrows... so the kick is lot more defined with a gun.

[Porpoisepower]

Clarification:
Firing a traditional bow doesn't kill the recoil from happening, you just don't notice it. Because your body is going "Yay!  I don't have pull that damn string back till my fingers turn blue anymore!"

[Jamuk]

He said he was using a crossbow in the post that started this, and it likely wasn't the recoil that caused it to move forwards and down.  We have no clue what kind of crossbow it is and many weapons redirect recoil in a direction other than straight towards your body.  Until you have further information there is nothing else that can be determined from the information.  However, the recoil would be present, like several of the people here have mentioned.  It just may be in a different direction than straight towards you, or it might not be noticeable.
The force required to hold any not crossbow is not important... even though many of you seem to have implied it is.  This is a crossbow so all of the force was put into loading the crossbow in the first place, then the string is held in place by the crossbow.

[Mikademus]

[Kagus]

... 


Can't you just use the butt end of the crossbow?