I told I wasn’t a trained Musketeer, Spavined Gelding! Thanks for the heads-up.
I’ve seen (and participated in) a speed-archery competition. In a 30-second round, the fastest (and one of the most experienced) person got off 8 shots. My best (my first time shooting) was five.
I’m not an archer but I seem to remember that bows do not remain straight in rain or damp weather.The longbow was probably better than the short bow,recurve, since the glue used was probably not moisture resistant.Also very cold temperatures was not good for them.
We still haven’t answered the question, though. Why not have longbowmen at the back of an infantry march? I’m thinking about the beating the British laid on the French at the battle of Agincourt.
So you have these British musketmen marching slowly towards you in massed formation, without a stitch of armor. This seems like a setup for a devastating longbow attack. Why didn’t it happen?
I recognize that there may be no good answer to the question, though. It may not have happened simply because no one in power thought about it, or because the powers-that-be refused to consider it for political reasons, or whatever. There was also a lot of social status wrapped around warfare at the time, and foolish notions about ‘civilized’ fighting. It may just be that the generals of the time associated bows with natives and ancestors and therefore didn’t think they were fitting weapons for warfare or something.
I don’t buy the skill argument. It doesn’t take *that long to learn how to aim a bow for an arcing trajectory, especially if your goal is just to drop an arrow anywhere within say a 100 ft radius. The skill would be in judging when to shoot, and that could be done by one man spotting the British troops and giving the order to fire at the right time. The archers themselves would basically just be elevating their bows to 45 degrees, drawing back to a pre-determined position, and letting go.
If we were discussing shorter bows, I think you would be correct–although they would not have penetrated fifteenth century armor.
However, the only bow from Renaissance Europe that had the range, accuracy, and armor-piercing qualities superior to muskets was the longbow. It did, indeed, require a great deal of skill and constant practice to wield. It was not simply a matter of drawing and loosing. The musculature (both strength and tone) required to actually draw the bow, particularly repeatedly throughout a battle, and to maintain even a general level of accuracy, was far greater than for any other bow known to Europeans of that era.
The longbow had already been lost as a military weapon prior to the introduction of the infantry musket because the breakdown of the feudal system had resulted in the loss to the nobility of a core group of archers whom they could command to practice each week for years at a time. From the Encycopædia Britannica:
Getting your powder wet isn’t a great idea either. Bad weather is bad news for almost all ranged weaponry.
16th century Japan is a good place to settle this agrument, as for a time Portugese muskets and Japanese bowmen existed side by side.
I think the reason was as much social as military. Only the English had ever had any useful numbers of longbowmen, who were basically a volunteer army of yeomen (read independant farmers/craftsmen) motivated as much by the comparatively high pay and prospect of loot as by patriotism, and by the time that early handguns became effective enough for general battlefield use, the English yeoman was finding better ways of earning a living. Henry VIII passed several laws attempting to force Englishmen to practice regularly with the bow, but with little success. Lonbows were used to some extent on ships for a while longer, due to the fire-related dangers of early guns.
Outside of England, there was almost no longbow use, as the requirement for regular practice essentialy meant that you had to be able to trust that an armed peasantry wouldn’t turn around and revolt against you. IIRC France made a half-hearted attempt at training longbowmen at one time, but very quickly decided that the risk wasn’t worth it. After all, the traditional methods worked fine against everyone except the English!
Militarily, one major influence was probably that the new super-armies of the Renaissance, such as the Swiss pikemen, Spanish tercios, and other massed formations, were natural targets which even the inaccurate early arquebuses and matchlocks couldn’t miss. As pointed out, you didn’t need a lot of training to be able to point a matchlock in the general direction of such a huge target and hit it reasonably frequently.
You’re forgetting one thing - the musket itself. It’s a heavy, long, bulky item. Much heavier than a longbow, and as bulky, especially since you carry the longbow unstrung.
It was said, back in the day, to train a longbowman, you started by training his grandfather.
It not just that the yeomanry were finding more profitable ways to spend their time, either. It involves costs on the noble’s side, too. A trained archer is epexensive to supply and maintain, what with paying him, and lost production (lost taxes!) while he’s training. Arrows aren’t precisely expensive, but they aren’t cheap, either, and once mass-produced shot became available, arrows were pricier than the shot. Arrows are harder to transport, and are more susceptable to enviromental conditions, too. A bag of lead shot won’t mind getting soaking wet, then frozen, then hot. Arrows won’t stand those kinds of treatment, all of which you’ll find in storage & trasportation.
OTOH, it’s not particularly hard to train an arquebusser: Get any old peasant that can stand up for a couple hours marching, give him a few weeks training in loading and firing his weapon, a few more weeks of drilling in formation marching, and poof, instant soldier, fit for slotting into the ranks and absorbing shot and pike. When you’re done fighting, take his arquebus away, put it in storage, and send the peasant back to the fields until the next time.
For a long time, the arquebus was an adjunct to the real weapon of decision: The pike. Tercios of massed pike and arquebus would manuever clumsily, the arquebussers firing to reduce the numbers of enemy pikemen, pikemen preparing to push their pikes home, and canon firing into the masses all the while. Men could and did stand massed fire like this for hours while striving to walk their pike formations into another formation just like them. Guts or stupidity? Both? You decide.
Tha advent of the socket bayonet was a Godsend to the generals. Now, instead of having to decide on the proper mix of arquebus-to-pike, every man was both musketeer, and pikeman. The tactics changed little, save that you could get the same military effect with a smaller force. “Pushing bayonets” replaced “pushing pikes”, but the pointy spear-tip was still, for the longest time, the weapon of decision. Not until the US Civil War was it realized that the day of the bayonet charge done. Hell, even in WWI, some generals preferred to rely on the bayonet, a full century past Napoleonic times.
I had a point in here somewhere, but I forgot what it was. Oh, well… I spent too long writing this to delete it. 
On the other hand arrows are bulky.
An interesting thing.
Attila used the composit bow. It worked better than the longbow when on horseback.
Once his arrows were all “dispersed” he was able to pick up those shot at him by his enemy and shoot them back. A feat not possible for his longbow shooting foe.
By twang of string! (and other faux Middle Ages exclaimers from The White Company, by Arthur Conan Doyle) the thread triggered the memory of this episode from the aforementioned book written as an Empire booster, more commonly known now as propaganda.
I downloaded it from Project Gutenburg and cut the bits and pieces irrelevant to the thread. But despite that and by these 10 finger bones! I apologize for its length. The excerpt shows, however, the type of training it might have required to become an expert longbowman; certainly it shows the dedication required in Aylward’s training if not so much in the children’s. No wonder firearms took over.
As for Doyle’s knowledge of the longbow, it is as well to remember that as well as being Sherlock Holmes’ father, he probably was the father of Piltdown Man, therefore not altogether trustworthy; but by my hilt! and as an aside, it would point to his sense of humour.
The elipses replace great chunks of dialogue and description.
As he came up with them, he saw that two little lads, the one about nine years of age and the other somewhat older, were standing on the plot in front of the cottage, each holding out a round stick in their left hands, with their arms stiff and straight from the shoulder, as silent and still as two small statues. . . …
“This is the proper way to raise children. By my hilt! I could not have trained them better had I the ordering of it myself,”
“What is it then?” asked Hordle John. “They stand very stiff, and I trust that they have not been struck so.”
“Nay, they are training their left arms, that they may have a steady grasp of the bow. So my own father trained me. and six days a week I held out his walking-staff till my arm was heavy as lead. Hola, mes enfants! how long will you hold out?”
“Until the sun is over the great lime-tree, good master,” the elder answered.
What would ye be, then? Woodmen? Verderers?”
Nay, soldiers,” they cried both together. . . .
“When they can bend my war-bow [the father says], and bring down a squirrel at a hundred paces, I send them to take service under Johnny Copeland, the Lord of the Marches and Governor of Carlisle. . . .
“And hark ye, mes enfants, [Aylward says] take an old soldier’s rede and lay your bodies to the bow, drawing from hip and thigh as much as from arm. Learn also, I pray you, to shoot with a dropping shaft; for though a bowman may at times be called upon to shoot straight and fast, yet it is more often that he has to do with a town-guard behind a wall, or an arbalestier with his mantlet raised when you cannot hope to do him scathe unless your shaft fall straight upon him from the clouds. I have not drawn string for two weeks, but I may be able to show ye how such shots should be made.” He loosened his long-bow, slung his quiver round to the front, and then glanced keenly round for a fitting mark. There was a yellow and withered stump some way off, seen under the drooping branches of a lofty oak. The archer measured the distance with his eye; and then, drawing three shafts, he shot them off with such speed that the first had not reached the mark ere the last was on the string. Each arrow passed high over the oak; and, of the three, two stuck fair into the stump; while the third, caught in some wandering puff of wind, was driven a foot or two to one side.
“Good!” cried the north countryman. “Hearken to him lads! He is a master bowman, Your dad says amen to every word he says. . . .”
“By my hilt!” said Aylward, “if I am to preach on bowmanship, the whole long day would scarce give me time for my sermon. We have marksmen in the Company who will knotch with a shaft every crevice and joint of a man-at-arm’s harness, from the clasp of his bassinet to the hinge of his greave. But, with your favor, friend, I must gather my arrows again, for while a shaft costs a penny a poor man can scarce leave them sticking in wayside stumps. . . ."
Ah, but the OP was not whether the longbow was better than the composite bow. It was why the longbow had been phased out for the musket. I agree that the composite bow is better than the longbow.
Which would you rather carry? A longbow and 60 arrows or a musket and 60 balls of lead plus assorted accessories that you need for the musket? I’d go for the longbow.
But the argument seems to come down to “Should armies have trained more longbow users vs. musketeers?” And the answer seems to be no, because the amount of training necessary is prohibitive.
[Quote T G Gax]
Ah, but the OP was not whether the longbow was better than the composite bow.
[quote]
What forth doth thou quote me . I just said it was interesting.
But 60 lead balls weigh probably 1/2 oz each. Not a big deal.I don’t know what a musket weighs.
Just untangling 60 arrows with arrow heads would be a project for a saint and, couple that with the excitement of battle…
The question isn’t whether the bow is a better weapon than a musket, but whether or not it could still make a valid contribution to a battle with muskets.
To me, the big advantage would have been the bow’s ability to fire over the heads of your own troops. The battles in the 1700’s involved masses of men marching towards each other, then the front row would fire at the enemy when in range, then fall back and let the next row step up while they reloaded. It seems to me that the guys in the back could have fired a volley of arrows in an arc over the heads of their own troops into the enemy formations. Since the men had no armor or shields, it seems to me that this would have been pretty effective, and as I recall the range was pretty short. I don’t even know if a longbow would have been required. A shorter, easier to manage bow might have had the range required.
Even if the arrows didn’t kill a lot of people, it would have played havoc with the formations.
What am I missing?
Actually I believe the archers were always in the rear. As stated previously the most damage was done by the pikemen so you tried to get them into the battle as healthy and plentiful as possible.
One of the war tactics of the romans was for the “pikemen” to shelter the man ahead of him with his shield when a volley of arrows was raining down upon them. So they did know about using shields but maybe didn’t use them for whatever reason.
This was disscussed in this thread.
The short answer? Economics. Muskets and arquebusses (arquebii?) had an effective life of 25 or so years, would stand long-term storage well, were cheap to train troops to use, and didn’t require a complex social structure to support.
Possibly the fact that if men were available, you could give them muskets and form another line of musketeers with them…
There weren’t people just staying behind the lines of firing/reloading musketeers and doing nothing.
Having just seen a tv programme about the Battle of the Boyne, and the way that infantry had learned how to defend themselves from cavalry, there is one further application of the musket, that of the pike.
Early muskets were long and fairly cumbersome, add to that length a short sword which was plugged into the barrel end and then you have a short pike.This evolved into the bayonet.
Previously longbowmen had to be protected by pikemen but combining the two roles would mean an increase in firepower and defensive ability using the same number of men.
This may have been covered already, but let’s go over it again.
It took a long time to train an effective military archer. The village idiot, or someone only a little bit brighter, could be taught to be a musket armed infantryman in a fairly short time. It was a pain to replace a dead, wounded or sick bowman. It was no big deal to find infantry replacements.
Formations of bowmen could not protect themselves from an opponent who closed with them because of the open formation bowmen used to employ their weapon effectively. Bowmen had to be protected by formations of pikemen who could interpose between the bowmen and the charging enemy. Musket armed infantry were dual purpose troops. They could deliver killing missile fire and they could function as pikemen by fixing a bayonet to the end of the musket. With the development of the socket bayonet in place of the plug bayonet musket infantry could shoot and poke at the same time.
The fire of musket infantry could be more effectively controlled by the commander.
Volley fire of musket infantry was a more effective battle decider than arrow fire. Until the mid-1800s volley fire was the preferred method of delivering fire.
We can assume that some time during the 1500s the people who ran European armies decided that musket infantry was better than the former bowman-pikeman-armored horseman combination. Even the Arabs and the American Indians gave up bows and arrows when fire arms became available.