While I understand that training and strength requirements made the longbow obsolete I thought that those requirements did not apply to crossbows which had at least equal power to the longbow. So why was a powerful crossbow not superior to a smooth-bore musket?
Well, as commonly told, it was the presence of large numbers of Pennsylvania long rifles that made a difference in many of the revolutionary engagements. I don’t know how true that is. I do know that the Continentals trained in regular musket drill when they could, so it wasn’t entirely about the riflemen.
Ironically, Gustavus Adolphus was killed by armored cuirassiers and probably would have lived if he, too, was armored. Supposedly he used to say “God is my armor.” That worked out well for him. Maurice of Nassau, on the other hand, understood the value of armor, as you can plainly see from his portrait. Armor was falling into disuse on the battlefield at this point, but those who used it knew its benefits firsthand. This last wave of heavy plate armor was incredibly heavy and thick, in order to stop a bullet. I can only imagine how the American Revolution might have turned out of the British had thrown a few regiments of armored heavy cuirassiers at the colonists.
It was really only in the past 20 years that the value of body armor as (opposed to armored vehicles) is being rediscovered.
Crossbows have a number of limitations that make them less desirable as military weapons than for hunting.
Firstly, there’s the loading speed – crossbows are much slower to load than bows and the powerful cranked kind are comparable to powder-and-ball muskets.
Secondly, frontage. A crossbow is wide, a longbow is tall and narrow, a musket is narrow. You can get 300 longbowmen on a length of line and perhaps 50-100 crossbowmen on an opposed line of the same length. Considering the longbows shoot faster, too, weight of fire will soon tell.
Thirdly, ballistics. There’s a property called impulse in addition to the traditionally-understood momentum. Put very crudely, force applied in a direction for a longer period of time results in a truer projectile flight. Crossbows, though powerful and packing considerable momentum (penetrating power), had short draw lengths and thus low impulse. Longbows had a longer draw length. net result: at long ranges, the crossbow projectile is subject to more tumble.
Also, a longbow arrow has the fletching farther from the center of gravity than does a crossbow quarrel. Again, this stabilizes the arrow better (crudely: airflow against the fletching pushes the back of the arrow in a given direction to stabilize its flight; on a long arrow the “leverage” is better than on a short quarrel. Result: again, crossbow quarrel tends to tumble a bit more at long distance.
Net effect: crossbows are hella powerful at penetration and accurate enough at close range; as the range opens, the crossbow becomes dramatically less accurate. The faster-firing longbow, in greater numbers over the same length of front, retains its accuracy at range, and wins in the missile exchange.
Smooth-bore muskets were as inaccurate as crossbows and similarly hard-hitting; they shared the long load times. But you could pack more of them onto a given length of line, and their ammo was less bulky too.
Medieval crossbows were far more accurate than longbows, especially at short ranges and “per hour of training”. I can keep my bolts inside a paper plate at 40 yards using a low-weight reproduction crossbow I rarely pull out. Sure, a highly skilled longbowman can keep his arrows inside the plate as well, but on average, doesn’t, especially with a bow transferring adequate amounts of KE for battlefield use (90 - 130 lbs. of pull and a 50 g+ arrow).
What Sailboat said about frontage, ballistics and fletching location may well be true, but I haven’t seen that happen IRL. Well-tuned bolts fired from a 300 lbs. crossbow fly just as stable and straight all the way down as longbow arrows when shot at a 45-degree elevation for maximum distance. Theoretically, the bolt is at an disadvantage, but gains a lot from at least one human factor eliminated: a crappy loose will foul a longbow shot at birth while a truly good loose is a rare sight indeed. Crossbows have perfect “loose” 24/7.
Efficient crossbows were highly expensive and very slow to operate. In terms of ammunition, they were practically as bulky and expensive as longbow arrows.
Missed the edit window.
Back in the early 1900’s Ralph Payne-Gallwey used actual, authentic Medieval crossbows (unthinkable today!) and reproduction battle bolts to reach distances in the 350 - 390-yard range. Compared to the 221-yard average skilled English warbow shooters of today are able to shoot with reproduction yew warbows and battle arrows*, the crossbow wins hands down. One does not get 300+ yards of flight with tumbling ammunition.
Agree wholly with Sailboat’s frontage point: crossbows are both heavy, long and wide, and extremely cumbersome in tight spots compared to just about any other weapon.
- specialized flight arrows (and bolts) can and have been shot much farther, but battle arrows need more than just range to do the deed.
Engineer Geek Thanks very much for an informative post.
In the clip the guy places the ramrod back in its place after each shot, couldn’t he shave off valuable seconds if he just stuck it into the ground instead of fiddling around getting it back.
Or am I missing something?
One thing that’s missing from this thread is skirmishers. The men walking elbow-to-elbow were preceeded by a screen of spread-out individuals who filled multiple roles. First, they acted as the “first contact” with the enemy. Usually, this was the enemy skirmishers doing the same thing for their side. They acted as a closer from of scout in that they could warn their immediate unit if they were about to be charged and such. And they could harass the enemy with gunfire. But again, this would normally be a low-level gunfight with the enemy skirmishers. If and when the enemy put real pressure on the skirmishers, such as an advance by their main body or a cavalry charge, the skirmishers retired to their parent unit so that the main line could put out some real firepower to deal with it.
WAG: It would probaly save time, but the clip is from some form of contest and the rules prohibit him from doing that.
Also, sticking the ramrod into the ground on a muddy battlefield while in close formation is a good way of losing it, which is probably why they would have a rule like that.
How fast were crossbows? Because muskets got three rounds per minute for moderately trained troops (i.e. less training than an expert longbowman). That’s certainly slower than an expert longbow, but could a crossbow with the same impact as a musket possibly fire three rounds/minute?
Possibly, but remember, the plan is that there’s going to be a bayonet charge after only a few volleys, so the ramrod will probably get lost permanently if you put it down.
Forcing them to replace the ramrod after every shot was drilled over and over and over with the soldiers so that it became second nature. This accomplished two things. First, it insured that the ramrod was not left in the barrel in the heat of battle, which would cause the soldier to accidentally fire his ramrod at the enemy. Second, it insured that the soldier wouldn’t leave his ramrod on the ground if he had to charge or make a hasty retreat. Without the ramrod you can’t load the weapon, so it’s important to keep it with the musket.
Despite the training and the procedure, ramrods were still occasionally fired at the enemy.
Muskets were often also fired by ranks, where you’ve got two or three rows of soldiers. While one rank is firing the others are reloading, so you end up with a wall of men shooting at a much faster rate than a single rank of musketeers would be capable of. With that many men crowded into a small area it wasn’t really practical to leave your ramrod in the ground since another soldier could easily knock it over, and if you are scrambling on the ground trying to retrieve your ramrod you are messing up the timing of your rank.
Muskets weren’t just distance weapons. Soldiers with muskets were also used as pikemen. You needed to be able to shoot and move without pausing to pick up your ramrod.
I recall reading in a Stackpole Encyclopedia, an article on firearms development where some muskets recovered from Civil War battlefields were found to have multiple loads in a barrel.
That in the heat of battle one would pull the trigger and not know that he had a misfire and load on top of prior misfire. (may have dry balled)?
The soldier was operating on auto-pilot.
This is quite possibly a silly question but I have to ask, were ramrods required when loading a pistol?
At Gettysburg (which is only about 10 minutes away from where I live) they found about 27,000 muskets on the battlefield after the battle. Of those, 24,000 were loaded, 12,000 of those were loaded more than once, 6,000 were loaded with three to ten rounds, and one was loaded 23 times.
I don’t know how much of that was the soldier operating on auto-pilot and how much was from soldiers intentionally overloading a musket so that the enemy couldn’t just pick it up and use it (or maybe the soldier was hoping the enemy would have it blow up in their face).
Well, the minimum standard to enter the English longbow service was to hit a man-sized target 12 arrows out of 12 at 300 yards. Every one of the thousands who drew a bow at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt theoretically met that standard. I don’t know if the standard was really used or just propaganda to scare the enemy. That would imply 300 yards is optimal range, not maximum range.
I can understand a soldier operating on auto but surely not 12,000 of them would be in such a state as to load their muskets twice.
Or 6,000 loading 6-10 times
You’d think that even on auto-pilot, a soldier would notice that his ramrod only goes 2/3 of the distance down the bore that it usually did.
That depends – numerous methods were used for turning kinetic energy into potential energy stored in the crossbow’s limbs. For example, some used a lever under the bow like an old-style rifle in a Western, some a “goat’s foot” metal claw on the belt and a stirrup on the front (your foot goes in the stirrup, the claw goes on the bowstring, and extend your leg to draw), some used a winch-type crank, and probably other methods existed. The winch type ones would be the slowest, I’d guess. I’m not sure how they compare to muskets.
Regarding the rate of misfires with flintlocks. I have a .45 cal. flintlock pistol (rifled barrrel) that I made from a kit. I have fired it probably at least a hundred times, and have never had a misfire. Of course, this was always under ideal conditions - dry weather,m nobody shooting at you, and so forth, so it isn’t a direct comparison with 17th century useage. But given proper loading procedures, those things are amazingly reliable.
The accuracy, at least in my case, was every bit as good as I could shoot a modern pistol offhand. The only downside was the loading time required for the next shot. So if someone points a flintlock at you and says “Don’t move” for heavens sake don’t consider it to be just a toy. For one shot they have quite a bite!