Play War Thunder now with my link, and get a massive, free bonus pack including vehicles, boosters and more: playwt.link/sandrhomanhistory2023 EDIT: Uhh, the math at 09:05 is wrong -> 360/hour

Won't be long until a Bannerlord or Mordhau player leaks classified information to prove his point in this debate.

_But they were all deceived... for another handheld ranged weapon was made..._

Be it a crossbow or a longbow, both pale against the efectiveness of a single Frenchman swearing to you from the top of a castle wall.

Context is everything. Not mentioned is that English longbows liked to fight from behind an obstacle - pits at Crecy, stakes at Agincourt - which was part and parcel of their harrassing role in goading an enemy to attack at a disadvantage. At Patay, a battle not generally discussed in English histories, longbowmen were caught before they could emplace stakes and were badly beaten.

I got a thousand hours of play on Total War Medieval so I am an expert on this subject and I say that Tsar Bomba is a much better weapon than either one

I feel like there are two key issues that plague this debate. 1. We are pitting one specific weapon, the longbow, against an entire category of weapons, crossbows. Crossbows came in many different shapes and sizes as pointed out and those were suited for different niches. You can't just lump all crossbows together just like you can't lump all spears together. To get better answers you should probably compare more specific crossbows with longbows in order to narrow down the comparison. 2. A tendency to assume pre-modern combat followed similar rules to modern combat. Focusing too much on technical specifications is generally emblematic of a fairly modern understanding of technology, it makes sense in a world with standardized mass production where these things are consistent and can be quantified with tests (though even when talking about modern combat people over focus on it often). But generally in pre-modern it makes much more sense to think about the role a weapon plays as is pointed out and especially it's morale effect. Pre-modern battles were very often determined by morale so the literal physical impact of a weapon isn't as important as the effect it can have on the cohesion and morale of an enemy, not in that it was literally scary necessarily but often in it's ability to break up formations or tire the enemy. If we look at some other famous bows like the compound bows used by many steppe nomads it in itself was inferior in many technical aspects to longbows or crossbows but it was part of the tactics many steppe nomads used which were often successful because they were able to tire less mobile enemies and make them rout.

I have been doing research on this subject for quite a while. Moving on to testing this year. My emphasis has been on the portuguese context, since we do have quite a few sources on various aspects of crossbow employment from a semi-professional corps. A few points: 1 - as to the power differences, the tests I have seen never take into account the myriad of variations in prod material (this is relevant due to energy loss through inertia), or the possible variation on quarrel characteristics, and other crossbow specifications - far too much standardization is assumed when discussing this problem. If we look at examples from museums alone, we see a lot of variation in design through western Europe alone. 2 - I have never seen considered in a significant degree in mainstream discussion (particularly online), that the crossbow might have offered economic advantages to the longbow. Crossbow manufacture involved more professionals, and was highly specialized. In Portugal, for example, around the Tejo (a river in central Portugal), we have references of at least 5 different professionals involved in crossbow production, and delivery to a private subject or troop. Prods, tillers, ticklers, strings, irons, quarrels and fletching, among other things, were mostly a specialised separate production which would later require assembly, testing, and tuning. This can kickstart local economies, produce basis for export (which happened in Flanders), promote trade, and provide the Crown, increasingly more concerned with standardization, with an economic and proto-industrial base of supply for its host. The 1471 expeditions to North Africa illustrate that. 3 - regarding training, we have a lot more insight as to the training of portuguese crossbowmen than we do of english longbowmen, for example. It is not surprising these sources are unknown, or ignored, due to language differences, but they exist. Recently, there have been two, maybe three, historians focusing on the problem and none of them has work published in English. If you would like me to provide you a translation of the seminal phd thesis on the subject I can @SandRhomanHistory ; In sum, however, training was extensive, and carried out every week, great legal pains were taken to ensure the coordination at local level, and the maintenance of equipment, training standards, and muster; tax privileges were complemented with fines for breaking agreements and obligations. We read of bank shooting of 100 quarrels a Sunday, coordination practice, and hunting parties - the latter are especially relevant due to vermin control (eagles), and special hunting privileges. 4 - employment, following from point number 3, is far more varied for crossbowmen in the sources than we see discussed elsewhere. Ambushes, small scale raiding parties, sieges, bodyguard duty, etc., all feature in the sources. 5 - As to the value of the bowman as a soldier, I think we ought to pay close attention to application and ordnances of other countries not France or England, such as Portugal and Spain, and reflect on the fact that the bow was extremely rare, while the crossbow was preferred, and the individual crossbowman was equiped to a higher standard, equipped with javelins, as well shield and sword, and expected to have a very high standard of proficiency. This only stopped when the crossbowman had its privileges revoked in favour of the gunman.

The higher rate of fire is certainly important. What makes the difference is not an average rate over few hours of battle, it's the ability to loose arrows at key points of the battle, for example when under charge. If a horseman charges on a formation, arrowmen had rather short time gap to loose the arrows on the charging force, they were in range for a couple of minutes or so. And it is much better to loose ten arrows then three bolts. Modern soldier can fire 500 round per minute, it does not mean that he carries to battle tons of ammunition, and he does not need to. But still, the ability to fire at this rate is important

A quick note on physics here. The "poundage" of a bow is NOT its "power". Commonly confused by historians who stopped doing physics in middle school, but that's no excuse. So a quick physics lesson: Pound is a measure of force. A 500 pound crossbow means that, at maximum draw, it takes a force equivalent to a 500 pound mass pulled down by gravity to pull the string back any further. *Energy* in the bow is the integral of that force over the draw distance. So the energy is (very roughly) draw weight * spanning distance * some number between 1/2 and 1 depending on the geometry and pre-tension in the bow. This is energy stored in the bow, but not all of that gets transferred to the projectile because, on release parts of the bow itself start moving so the kinetic energy is shared between the arrow and the bow itself. Does this actually matter for the debate? Not entirely. But getting the elementary science wrong never helps anyone either.

Something I noticed is that some info on the use each weapon had can be found in surnames. As surnames come from professions, you can tell what kind of troops were actual soldiers (and not just levies) in each region by the names they left: for example, in English, you can find family names as Archer and Bowman, while in Spanish and Catalan you have Ballestero and Ballester (i.e. Crossbowman).

I like to think that every weapon is situational and not a direct upgrade to each other. By sticking to weapon classes in the same or similar eras, they are more side grades to each other. While there may be better alternatives to some, there isn't a hard and fast, overall inferior weapon unless purposely taken out of context.

Am I missing something? 6 arrows a minute doesn't equal 60 arrows an hour. It equals 60 arrows every 10 minutes

Obviously since neither fully replaced the other over a long period of time, both had their advantages.

It would take us longer to make a definite answer to this question, than it took for armies to replace both weapons with arquebusses

Just because it is not sustainable to fire at maximum cadence does not imply that it is not a huge advantage. When the enemy charges you will probably fire most of the time with maximum cadence to discourage him and inflict maximum damage while he is within range. There is no denying that in those critical moments firing more projectiles is a huge advantage. Of course no one keeps it up for hours but that is not the point.

Crossbow is even more useful when you have cover than people realize. It comes from most people misunderstanding how a crossbow is shot. Typically you don't hold it as a rifle, but with one hand at the back of the stock, with the other with a overhand grip with a thumb on the nut holding the arrow down - which makes it much easier to just put the weapon over the cover with as little exposure as possible, shoot and hide again. It's why you have pavise crossbowmen and not pavise archers. You'd think an archer would benefit from a pavise just as much on a battlefield, but if you ever shot a longbow, you'd know that having stuff in front of you is a massive headeache and if you hit anything with the limbs, you've probably irreversably destroyed it. When you are a longbowman on a castle wall, you either have to have space in front of you, which severly limits your ability to shoot at people downwards, and if you wnat to shoot down, you have to get close to the wall, and put your whole bow in front of the wall, becoming a massive target. For the crossbow, if you can rest the styrrup on a surface, you can shoot from there no problem.

The math at 9:09 is off, if they fired 6 arrows/minute that's 360 arrows/hour, not 60/hour. So 1.8M arrows per hour for the 5000 archers. Solidifies your point more that they would not be firing at the maximum rate constantly during a battle.

ummm not sure if anyone has pointed this out.... 9:07 ---- 6 arrows a minute is not 60 arrows an hour... it is 60 in ten minutes and 360 an hour not allowing for rest. so 1,800,000 arrows an hour for 5,000 archers with no rest period in that hour... otherwise enjoy the video.

best way to think of it is if one was truly better, we'd be using just that one instead of both

Crossbowmen were almost always professional warriors, mercenaries. It could not be otherwise, because the cost of their equipment was many times higher than that of archers. Naturally, professional mercenaries were generally better trained in all aspects of warfare at the time. The French kings always preferred crossbowmen, but they did not always have the money to hire enough of them. At Poitiers (1356), the English archers tried to shoot with the French crossbowmen, but even having used up the main supply of arrows, they could not suppress them. There is a mention that the English archers even managed to go into the flank of the French attacking formations, but the arrows bounced off the armor of the French knights moving on foot, which indicates that the effectiveness of the longbow was not at all the same as we are shown in the movies.

Amazing. The video basically concludes that a direct comparison is pointless due to various reasons. And yet, people in the comments immediately start arguing again about which is better. 👍

The one argument for the crossbow that I always found made a lot of sense in a Siege scenario is that you could fully reload the weapon behind cover and than only leave cover to shoot. In order to fire an arrow you have to stand up, draw and shoot without being behind cover.

I am not a archer, but I had had the chance to try to shoot a longbow and several xbows. I am a pretty big guy at 182 cm and of stout build. I am reasonably fit. Shooting smaller bows was allready demanding but I was not able to shoot a 120 pound bow more then once or twice before I was not able to draw it anymore. Xbows where different. Yes the winch took some getting used too, but it was doable without to much strain. The smaller xbows without winch where you stand on it and pull up was more taxing, but i was able to do it about 15 time before straining. Shooting with precision was almost impossible with the long boy because I was pretty much shacking just to maintain the draw for any length of time while with the xbow after a few shots my accuracy was very good. I personally think the xbow is a better choice for armies that are mustered. The reason is simple. You can practice something and learn it, but building the strength required to shoot a long bow for any length of time efficient takes years. From a logicistical point of view the xbow is a much better weapon when dealing with semi or non proffessional armies.

6 arrows / minute != 60 arrows / hour. It's 360 arrows / hour. So 1.8 million arrows / hour at Agincourt, at that rate.

The thing about crossbowmen is that they were still considered infantry being armed with decent weapons and armor. This was possible because it was extremely easier to teach a infantry man how to use a crossbow when needed rather than devoting his life to master the longbow.

The anwer is musket

I think we underestimate how good and how much endurance bowmen who grew up depending on long bows for food, defense, entertainment, etc. were. The bow likely became like an appendage. Sort of like how one of the reasons the Mongolians were unstoppable was because they were used to doing everything from horseback, especially bows since they were little children. It’s so different in comparison to archery simply as a hobby or even for competition. However, I have no doubt, many people have hilariously inaccurate theories on them.

Ultimately the difference between the 2 came down to costs. A crossbow man could have been trained in about 4 to 6 weeks whereas a longbow man was actually someone who trained since childhood. The latter was far more expensive and far less replaceable . During the 100 years war the English kings ensured to protect their longbow men at all costs because they know that their replacement was fat more difficult.

Great video, but your rebuttal of the Longbow = Machine gun point, miss represents how machine guns are used. The high rate of fire exhausts a machine gun as well. Properly used machine guns don’t just spray bullets the entire battle. If they did the would exhaust their ammunition rapidly. But machine guns are still very useful. A high rate of fire with low bows curry key moments in a battle would still be very useful.

Rate of argument fire misses out the point that archers can see situations where they should fire faster, and then situations where they would not need to fire as much. So they see an opening and go full out, then they slow down or stop shooting and wait for an opening. The ability to put six arrows where a single crossbow bolt would be is a massive tactical advantage, even if you only use this ability sporadically

10:30 did it really never occur to you that archers didn't all have to fire at once too? You could have a formation 6 ranks deep, and after the ones in the front fire a volley the second row fires one, then the third ... until you've gone down the whole set and start from the front again. With that setup, you could have a continuous rain of arrows as long as your ammunition held out.

The question of whether getting an army of archers or crossbow users really depended on whether or not your country had a long-standing archery tradition. If yes, then go for the bows because an army of truly skilled archers can fire much faster and be just as powerful and accurate as an army of crosbow users. But if you don't have that tradition, it is far better to invest in crossbows, because you will only need a couple of months to train an army with no archery experience to be good enough with crossbows.

I think the cost are also an intersting factor to look at. Many interpretations are that the mechanical parts of a crossbow had to be more expensive than wood. This leaves out however is that a longbow couldn't be made from simple "wood". England imported Yew for their bows from all over europe, with bavarian sources of the 16 ct stating that not a single yew can be found in the kingdom due to those exports. So it is safe to assume that a longbow wasn't as cheap as many people think.

The obvious pro and cons is the troops. Archers require more training and thus more pay because there's less supply. You could get more crossbowmen because anyone can pick one up and get decent in a week, thus high supply and less pay. Realistically, if you have enough food and supplies for all the crossbowmen, you can break even on shots per minute vs archers just by having more men.

I love the “crossbows we’re like sniper rifles and longbows were like machine guns” people.

Before I watch this I have to say: In my experience with both, I regard the longbow the superior weapon. It, however, requires considerable training and years of practice to master. The crossbow fires like a musket. It can be taught in an afternoon and practiced in a week. Furthermore, the musculature of the longbowman is odd and specialized. Any farm boy with a strong back can load a crossbow.

One criticism. having crossbowmen teamed up taking turns, does not increase the overall rate of fire, it halves the number shooting at any one time.

The game changer for the longbow, that is often ignored is the access and culture of the longbow. In England, you had a culture of your peasants using longbows. It was a form of survival and pride. England nailed it with hosting competitions for the longbow. This gave the poor a realistic path to climbing the hierarchy or at least make some real money. The main benefits of all this are... when it was time for war, you had a very large pool of ready made, veteran archers that came equipped and ready to roll. The advantages of this cannot be overstated. Also, a citizenry who can repel invading armies if pushed... another major advantage.

I think the biggest reasons why the crossbow took over in mainland europe have little to do with efficiency of the weapon. By the end of the middle ages, yew became quite rare, at the same time metallurgy got a lot better making steel prods the better choice for a mass produced weapon. Crossbows and its bolts are also the better weapon to stock up armories, much easier to maintain than a delicate wooden bow with comparably flimsy arrrows (compared to a thick rugged wooden fletched crossbow bolt of course) that might even warp rendering them less useful or completly useless. Since sieges were the most common type of engagement, in the case of a besieged town you could just hand them out to some moderately trained citizens as defense was often organised by the guilds. A crossbow is also of course the better weapon for the defender. So now you already have a weapon thats common in use, its just logical that that weapon gets more popular for general warfare use. Later when the arquebus and musket came around, they quickly replaced the crossbow as they filled pretty much the same niche.

Sustained rate of fire is different from burst rate of fire. Common sense suggests two things to consider and test: 1) a longbowman likely could not keep up a greater rate of fire over an hours long battle than a crossbowman. The work that a crossbowman did was more the kind that can be done all day, like working in a field. The work a longbowman did was like that of a baseball pitcher. He would get fatigued after a certain number of shots. If he were forced to work significantly faster he would get fatigued with fewer shots. And if he worked very hard for a long time one day he may have been rather ineffective the next couple of days. 2) At certain moments in the battle it would likely be advantageous for a unit to loose many arrows/bolts in a short period of time. The longbow provides such flexibility, offering a potential tactical advantage. Also, the way crossbows were used tactically perhaps ranged widely as it seems there were a wide range of types of crossbows available. I think the question of which was better in battle is unknowable. Perhaps the choice between the two came down more to social and economic conditions than to battlefield effectiveness. If one were significantly more overall effective than the other then the other would likely have faded away. But whether to employ one or the other may have come down to the situation one found oneself in. Longbowmen required years of training to be able to pull war bows. Some places had what could be called a longbow culture. Yet in other places, mercenaries preferred to equip themselves with crossbows. What is the reason for that? Was there a greater survivability for crossbowmen? Was there a cost advantage to the longbow unit in places where a longbow culture existed, but in the case of a mercenary group who is paid for their effectiveness in battle it was no problem to deal with the extra equipment cost? It seems hard to answer these questions without first knowing how the units were employed in battle and what capabilities they gave to the commanders under whom they fought.

The point touched earlier in the video is one of the most important. Clearly two different places at different times developed military weapon systems based on different principles, one on high intensive labor input and the other on high intensive capital input, and thus developed their entire technological, logistical, productive and cultural forms of organization around them. These complex regional historical systems are not born out of a simple game theoretic minmax calculation of "which system is objectively better accross all possible scenarios" because even the systems themsevels weren't perfectly efficient, indeed there was literally no way to ensure either perfect training standards for archers or perfect manufacturing standards for crossbows. Furthermore the organization of technological and labor resources was highly descentrallized and informal, and greatly regionally circumscribed, so a game theoretic arms race probably wasn't ever necessary nor plausible. For example there was probably no reason for genoese crossbowmen to adapt their system significantly much as a result of their loss against the english since their area of military operations clearly was not centered on Northern Europe anyways, nor can it ever be proven if the victory was a fluke because English archers didn't go south either to try and fight crossbowmen with full pavisses. The point is that these systems could for the most part remain relatively aloof of each other, the same way that saracen archery didn't lead to a revolution of dropping the objectively inferior self bows for recurves. Another extremely important point is derived from imposing modern standards of warfare on premodern warfare, because melee combat was a thing back then, and as such ranged weapons shouldn't strictly be judged with regards to how they compete directly against each other, but how do they compete against melee troops which have a parallel arms race going on with ranged weaponry through the development of armor. In short, pockets of relative inefficiency, overfitting to specific regional tactical niches, and culturally bound inertia, plus a very small differential of effectiveness either way, are all reasons as to why both systems coexisted rather than extinguished each other. In the later gunpowder period, when you see a much more closely integrated literary military culture, more far reaching military endeavors, and a greater technological and tactical innovative frontier, is when you start seeing rapid and sustained change in army organization

I think you're looking at rare-of-fire the wrong way. After all, modern machine guns don't fire continuously for hours at a time. They would quickly overheat. ... However, what they can do is generate a high a volume of fire at critical points during a battle. ... It would have made sense for archers to operate in a similar manner, firing rapidly when they needed to and conserving their arrows at other times.

I'd have to say one point on the rate of fire: Historically most fighting probably wasn't done in big battles, but rather smaller skirmishes and ambushes, where rate of fire definetly is a huge factor. To be fair, second to that would be sieges, where it generally isn't a factor at all...

I always thought it was quite simple, the British allowed the arming of its peasantry ( with enforced practise of archery for generations)where the French was always wary of that…..

>the internet has strong opinions on something Oh boy, here we go again.

Children began strength training at a very young age in order to become longbow men. Anybody was capable of firing a crossbow with only a little training.

what about range? strangely no mention of that. i'd reckon thats an important metric. also, wind resistance? maybe not as important but we know of at least one battle that was essentially decided by the wind, the battle of towton where the counter wind shortened the range of the arrows massively so they all fell short to the jeers of the enemy. crossbow bolts are heavier (i think?) and travel in a flat trajectory so im guessing wind would have less effect on them?

The crossbow is better for no other reason other than ease of use. You can train a group of men how to shoot a crossbow well in a week, it takes years to teach someone to shoot a bow well.

There is no best weapon, there are only compromises.

"Longbow or Crossbow?" "Arquebus"

Something that all of these comparisons miss out on is the logistics required to support the weapons. Crossbows were heavier, required specialized craftsman to maintain, and would be difficult to repair in the field without heavy specialized equipment and materials. This all means that your supply convoy needs to move more men and material. Which means a slower advance, more difficulty crossing rough terrain, which means more mouths to feed and increased caloric requirements. Both for the men and the animals pulling the carts. Especially when you get into heavy longbow versus heavy crossbow. You could carry dozens of replacement bowstrings for the weight of a single metal crossbow string. Yes the time required to train archers impacts these decisions. However this is offset but the time required to train blacksmiths to maintain crossbows. Every archer would be adept at maintaining their own bow and wouldn’t be reliant on a specialized individual. If they break a string during a battle they could replace it themselves quickly. If you break a crossbow or lose the blacksmiths in your column your crossbowmen are out of commission. Specialized weapons and tactics win battles. Logistics wins wars.

Take 20 untrained individuals , give them quick training session and find out . Most likely crossbow would win , it took 5 years and a stack of gold to train bowmen ( although every peasant in England was obliged to train with bow ). Same thing with hand cannon and later with muskets , well trained bowmen would obliterate even musketeers . It all came to price and length of training .

9:05 I think you forgot a 3 in the 60 arrow/hour as for 6 arrows/minute = 6*60 arrows/hour = 360 arrows/hour and for 5000 archers that'd be a staggering 1.8 million arrows per hour!

I am a sworn crossbowman, but I straightly think, that a large group of trained longbowmen would quite rapidly drive a large group of crossbowmen into chaos if put face to face 150 yards between them.

When one compares these weapons it's hard without the tactical usage being brought into consideration. The longbow's famous battles were won by men positioned behind battlefield defences designed to hinder an enemy advance, Ideally some reconnaissance would have taken place allowing for the marking of range, All these act as force multipliers. In open field battles where the only shelter a longbowman could take was a ditch. gully, or hiding behind the heavily armoured men-at-arms, rendered them far less effective. Crossbowmen were better in open-field battles, especially when deployed where shields could protect those reloading whilst the first 'rank' fired. However these were far more cumbersome formations dependent both on the discipline of the archers and those of the 'shock troops' following in their wake. Medieval commanders did not have a good reputation for patience or tactical acumen, regularly launching speculative charges in search of glory when time spent waiting for the crossbowmen to do their work would have been far more sensible.

Why don't we look at the spread of their use? I don't know about all about Europe, but in the Iberian peninsula it seems that the bow was more common in the earlier period, before crossbows took over starting somewhere in the 10th-11th century. The bow was still kept for specialized purposes, but the crossbow became the favoured long-ranged infantry weapon. The people that lived before us were not stupid. Their lives depended on using the best military technology available to them in order to survive. If both crossbows and bows were used at the same time does that not imply that they are both formidable weapons but with slightly different use cases? The varying regional popularity of crossbows and bows is to be expected because people face different geographical, strategic, cultural etc circumstances. However, it does seem like generally by the later middle ages that crossbows were more common in most countries across Europe. This implies to me that the crossbow was generally favoured, possibly due to crossbowmen being easier to train and replace than bowmen. But if a country had access to excellent archers, they would encourage their proliferation and use them in battle. This is the case with England. I also believe the whole longbow vs crossbow debate is a bit of anglo-saxon chauvinism, since it was such an iconic English weapon. Therefore in the past people have tried to big it up for reasons of national pride. Hence why there is more research available on the longbow than the crossbow, at least in English. Great video, keep up the good work!

People never realize that these two weapons had different purposes crossbows were smashing weapons which is why they had heavy bolts with blunt rounded tips and crossbows had 1000 pound draw weights. They were meant to hit a larger wooden or armored target and smash through it. bows are mean to penetrate through soft flesh which is why the arrows are sharper, lighter,thinner, longer also more tip heavy to provide a faster more stable flight using less draw weight. Less draw weight also meant that the reload speed of bows made them more suitable for firing at smaller, individual, moving, fleshy targets but the blunt force of a crossbow made it more suitable for smashing through carriages

I have made a crossbow out of a longbow. I have successfully ignored the demons screaming in my ears for many moons, but I am losing my grasp on sanity. I have punctured the armor of a tank using my unholy amalgamation. If you read this, send help and a priest.

I think the most important thing is that people realize they're not directly comparable. They both provided the capability of man portable direct fire. But in many ways that's where the similarities end. Drawing modern comparisons isn't really viable. For example, a crossbow has a low skill floor and a low skill ceiling. Where a longbow has a higher skill floor and a very high skill ceiling. Give someone a crossbow and train them for a couple days and they'll figure it out. A couple days training with a longbow and they'll still need years of conditioning before their back is strong enough to fire a legitimate warbow. Not to mention the difference in marksmanship techniques. The crossbow requires mechanical skill, where a longbow requires a kinesthetic intuition. You could say that longbows are more powerful, but the counter argument would be something like an arbalest or windlass. To which the counter argument could be the longbow can fire faster than either of those. To which the counter argument could be that it takes years or decades to train a good warbow archer, but only months to a year for a good heavy crossbow Archer. To which the counter argument could be etc etc Essentially I'm taking the really long way of saying that military procurement at any point in history is a complex topic. So the only reason we boil it down to something as simple as crossbow versus longbow is because we don't live in a time where it matters and all the geopolitical, cultural, and economic context exists. But in historical times the decision between crossbow and longbow could have come down to factors such as was hunting illegal for the last 20 years? Because if it was then you probably wouldn't have enough trained archers and would need to use whatever variety of crossbow is most likely to defeat your opponents armor at that time.

In all three of the famous "archer battles", Crecy, Poitier and Agincourt the French Knights reached the English line and the battle was decided hand to hand. So, my questions, were the archers more influential because of archery or as light infantry? Maybe their ability to do both competently?

I think people vastly underestimate culture and economics in the debate. England had a longbow culture and thus, likely more longbow crafters and people who dedicated themselves to training with them. If you were to join the English army and had to buy a ranged weapon surrounded by longbows, you’re probably going to want to buy a longbow. And that sentiment probably transferred to the generals composing the armies. Similarly, the Italians, particularly in Genoa, had a crossbow culture. As you said, people weren’t drawing out charts comparing the two, probably just using the ranged weapon of the culture.

the battle order of the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights described mounted crossbowman in a dual role of skirmishers and second line shock cavalry. and surviving documents suggests that in the 15th century german speaking areas a lance was considered of one knight, one squire and one mounted crossbowman as minimum requirment

Pretty sure I recall reading that there were crossbow guilds in many towns and cities in Europe. So they idea that longbowmen were the only ones practicing regularly while arbalists were levies whose hands were filled with a crossbow does not seem entirely accurate

A likely benefit of the crossbow in sieges is that you can keep it aimed for a long time, waiting for someone to let their guard down... Also if you risk running out of arrows, there's a reduced benefit to a high rate of fire.

To my knowledge crossbowman were generally professional soldiers serving as either mercenary companies or fortification garrison. While english longbowmen could also be professional, but were many times levied in times of war. So it is quite convenient for levies to already have the skills needed and or the equipment. Crossbows had much higher cost so were not as viable for mass training and private ownership. In other european countries it was generally prefered do employ levie troops as pikemen.

I think that the relative mechanical complexity of a crossbow should be taken into account, it makes the weapon more user friendly and requires less training to use sure but as any soldier will tell you technology in the field will break and theres no way your fixing a crossbow in the field, whereas the simpler nature of a bow means less to go wrong , and of the two things that can go wrong (string breaks or bow breaks) one can be done by the soldier in the fielr

I don't think anyone was thinking that people were shooting six arrows per minute sustained. But the high rate of fire would still land you an advantage if at any point, the enemy offered you a soft target for any amount of time over 10 seconds by this test. If there's a cavalry charge that's in range for 22 seconds your archers might be rested from not having a target for a while and then they can all get twice as many shots off as a crossbowman could.

Here is my two cents: 1. The crossbow is a weapon more geared toward skirmishing. More suited to men going out in front of the enemy to harass and screen. This is evidenced by the fact that the crossbow is more of a direct-fire and short range weapon. The crossbowman's job is to annoy the enemy and hold the foe at bay, and to prevent the enemy crossbowmen from doing the same. 2. The longbow is more the weapon for infantry support. This is why the longbow can preform better indirect-fire. Essentially the longbow is replicating the effects of an entire line of spearmen, only these spearmen often attack from above. This is why there were no pervasive pavise archers, they weren't going up against other ranged weapons. 3. I believe our way of looking at the evolution of arms is flawed. It is my theory that the handgun/musket was not the replacement for the crossbow or archer, but instead the replacement for the melee weapon of the common soldier. when we look at the roles formerly performed by the crossbowman and archer, we find their replacement is field artillery. Consider how cannon typically used more individually powerful cannon balls at longer range in a skirmishing fashion and grape or canister shot (essentially replicating the effects of an entire line of musketeers) at closer range for infantry support.

6 arrows per minute would equal 360 arrows per hour. So at Agincourt you would be talking 1.8 million arrows per hour. That's a logistical impossibility.

6 arrows per minute does not equal 60 arrows per hour 6x 60=360 At least where I live...

There's no such thing as "a better weapon". It's "better weapon for a specific application and circumstance", which includes shit like skills of the wielder and training time. A gun is generally considered a superior weapon to a knife, and for good reason. But knives never jam, never run out of bullets, and make a lot less noise. So, in a few rare circumstances (like needing to maintain stealth and already being close to the enemy), the knife is the superior choice. A master longbowman can do a lot of things that a master crossbowman cannot. But, during the time period these weapons were in common use, it was common practice to recruit peasants, give them a crash course in how to use one easily learned weapon, and march them off to battle. A longbowman takes years of dedicated training to reach proficiency. The crossbow demands only weeks to months of training to reach proficiency. Lower rate of fire, probably longer range, easier to strike individual targets. More compact and maneuverable in tight quarters such as stone hallways and atop ramparts. The nobility hated it because it allowed a peasant with limited training to slay a fully armored mounted knight (ie member of nobility) in combat. At one point, they tried to have the weapon banned because it was so effective at defeating their armor and dealing them mortal wounds. In videogame parlance, the longbow is a high skill-floor, high skill-ceiling weapon. The crossbow is a low skill-floor, mid skill-ceiling weapon. Master longbowman vs master crossbowman in a duel, I'd bet on the longbowman based on fire rate and the assumption that both know how to dodge. But masters of each weapon were rare.

On the rate of fire discussion, rate of fire was almost certainly crucial. Your uptime, the burst rate, are critical. You don't need to shoot 6 hours a minute the entire hour. You need to do it for that brief period where the enemy is within your effective range but not too close that it's dangerous for archers or your own infantry are engaged. Battles are hours of boredom and minutes of intensity. A loose comparison is to modern air cooled machine guns and assault rifles. They cannot sustain automatic fire very long and their sustained rate is much lower than cyclical rate. Soldiers also would run out of ammo within minutes if they fired full auto during the entire engagement. It's useful for those brief windows where you are fighting. The machinegun comparison is actually fairly accurate in this regard.

I love the longbow machine gun animation. Hilarious! Great work.

if the longbow was the obvious better weapon in every way then european nations wouldnt have busted their asses innovating and manifacturing crossbows.

If you have a centralized government and a large urban population, crossbowmen can be trained in weeks.

9:06 - 6 arrows per minute doesn’t equate to 60 arrows per hour, but rather 360. Your calculation is off by a factor of 6.

Question: why even bother to have teams of crossbowmen alternating with each other? The act of drawing a crossbow back requires no more than the strength to accomplish the task, and the minimal intelligence to learn how to do it. Why not just have a skilled user firing the weapon, while one or more unskilled 'assistants' are busy readying other weapons for use?

I am afraid there are a few points in your piece that need to be taken into more thoroughly, namely: 1) Seems to me that most sources taken into account are in English. However, there exist dozens of manuals on reflex bows in Arabic, Turkish or Persian. Also, bow in various forms was used in the whole of Europe, not only in England and France but also in Scandinavia, Germany, Bohemia and Poland-Lithuania. There could be other sources in those lands. 2) In addition to Mary Rose data, there are also so-called pipe rolls in England from which it could be gleaned how many arrows/bolts were stored in various castles of the Crown - and possibly also a number of archers /crossbowmen stationed there at a specific time.

What is better weapon, crossbow or longbow? Simple answer - neither. If one would be undeniably better, the other wouldn't be used at all. But they were both used at the same time, so both have to have a merit.

It took 6 years to train a longbowman. 6 months to train crosbowman. And 2 weeks to drill pessant mob to use guns.

I think Crossbow men defending a towers or a Gatehouse would most likely have other people loading more than one Crossbow just swapping them over being ready to fire so they are only require to aim and shoot making them more Deadly.

9:00 6 arrows per minute = 60 arrows an hour? Are you terribly sure about that math there?

It was great to see all the debates around the subject. Gives you an example of the size of the debate.

This video confuses power with draw weight, which is only one out of three factors that determine power. Whether a bow or crossbow is more powerful is really dependent on the three factors of draw weight, power stroke, and efficency of the prod. Some bows are actually more powerful than many crossbows. Furthermore, the prod of crossbows did not necessarily evolve from wood to composite to steel. These different materials existed at the same time during the late middle ages, and composite material was actually a better but more expensive material to use than steel.

6 arrows per min and 60 min in an hour means 360 arrows per hour with no exhaustion. By 5,000 archers that would be 1,800,000 arrows. Whoever your logistics guy is who said 300,000 arrows should be tarred and feathered 😂🤣 9:03

If it's an archer duel, longbow. If I need a shit-ton of men on a field or some walls in a hurry to be murder-ready, crossbow.

In Portugal there was the battle of Aljubarrota (1385) in which Portugual had both "frecheiros" (Crossbowmen for the most part) and less numerous English longbowmen both are mentioned in chronicles but the stars are the longbows , they seem to have been considered more effective.

which weapon is better, the bow or the crossbow? SandRhoman History : no.

English style was to dig pits 1 foot square and deep to break up cavalry charges. The archer carried large stakes which they pounded into the ground with lead mallets and then sharpened. Imagine that you are in a group of longbowmen and the French cavalry are beginning their charge. They are out at a slow trot and slowly pick up speed. For the last 50-100' the charge at their top speed. At maximum range (200-300 yards) you probably fire a couple of shots per minute for harassment value and who knows "you might get lucky." When that body approaches the max effective range (60-100 yards) is when you'd start pouring it on. Tired after 12-18 shot isn't going to be as much of an issue because with all of that steel coming at you adrenaline will kick in. Also, that cavalry charge is going to cover that 60-100 yards very quickly. Hopefully the pits (1 foot wide/long and 1 foot deep) that you've dug and the stakes that you have planted break that charge. If they have you can pull out your lead mallet and have at any knights that have been disabled or can be overwhelmed by your numbers. You likely won't shoot much until the cavalry have disengaged because you don't want to hit your own. The footman charge is a bit different. They'll be the ones without the status or cash to have a horse. They'll likely be less heavily armored. The action will be similar. They will form up and begin at a march. as they close the distance they will begin to move at a trot. For the last 10-20 yards they charge. You'll fire a few shot per minute to harass them at max range. As they approach max effective range is when you will pour it on. On foot they will be closing the distance much slower so you'll have more time to hammer them. Adrenaline will kick in, but you will start to tire and slow and get a bit sloppy as they approach melee. Hopefully your fire has broken up their formation and dramatically thinned their numbers. Once again you pull out your lead mallet and go after them as they negotiate the pits that you have dug and the stakes that you have planted. There should be some men at arms out front to help and the enemy will be fighting fatigue from their double time march and the last 10-20 yards of charging. Once again you might fire some aimed shots, but until the French break contact or a second wave comes in you likely won't shoot much. I wouldn't characterize the long bow as only a harassment tool. As the enemy closes it will have the power to punch through cheaper/earlier plate armor. Later in the period armor made of better steel with sloped/curved plates would have been more resilient, but this stuff was expensive in comparison. Your average knight would not have been able to afford it even to save his life. I think that the depictions in Bernard Cornwell's books are very likely close reality. Crossbowmen's job would have been similar. Fire harassing shots at max range and pour it on when the enemy reaches a range where the bolts should penetrate the enemy's armor more effectively. Which a sovereign uses would depend on what is available and what they can afford. If you have a large peasant body that practices with the longbow regularly then you use them. If you have access to a large amount of cash you hire professional mercenary crossbowmen. If you have access to neither then you put what crossbow you can afford into the hands of some peasants and you train them as money and/or time affords. Late crossbows with steel arms could shoot 340-500 yards. That doesn't mean that they were accurate or could reliably kill at that range. Since the crossbow couldn't fire as fast one would have to adjust their tactics.

I think the question of cost is important, but it is difficult to assess accurately. Crossbows have a higher initial investment cost than a bow, but the initial training cost for an archer will be much higher, especially when you need to replace them. There are several factors that favour the crossbow in a siege, beyond the "sniper" role. Sieges were more common than field battles. A fortified position, like a castle, was an excellent way of projecting power over an area since it could contain mounted troops that could range out to collect tributes and taxes and dispense justice. It also meant a nice retreat for them in case of revolt or outside enemies. A castellan that could tax the surrounding countryside would be in a better position to invest in crossbows than any peasant militia. If the mounted troops of the castle were besieged, an armoury filled with crossbows would provide them with easy to use ranged weapons. These weapons could be placed spanned and ready to load with a bolt at key positions in case of an alarm. It would be much easier to coordinate volleys on specific targets, such as a team rushing to the walls with siege ladders for an escalade. Even non-combatant personnel could be trained to help in the reloading process, and even children could help in resetting and clearing the crannequin pulley ropes to make them ready for reuse.

Archer practice of the long bow was like cricket and foot ball games on weekends. So the english practiced from a very young age. Plus each shire had to supply a regulate number of arrows to the king or local baron.

The English longbow's power lay in mandatory training, turning ordinary people into professional soldiers. This enabled England to quickly raise an army without straining its economy. The taxation system revolved around bow and arrow production, allowing even peasants to contribute in supplies, unlike traditional taxation limited to the nobility. This marked the birth of the industrial military complex and helped a small, damp island compete with larger, wealthier nations like France and Spain.

In sone towns in Italy there are still traditional crossbow competitions held every year.

Listen the battle of crecy was due to strategic blunder even if you had the same longbowmen on the opposing side they would still get devestated.

power is not directly related. the time the power is applied is very important a crossbow has a very short power stroke usually a few inches a longbow is in modern times thought of as having a draw length of 28 inches the power reduces a bit through the power stroke but the long power styroke adds greatly to the energy the arrow carries i am an ametur archer. being freakishly tall my draw length is 32 inches so at best there is an average but it was variable. also after shooting once a week, 90 arrows wiyhin a year i was getting at least 80 into the bullseye at 30 meters and Iwas far from the best so at that distance I could put an arrow int a persons face others were doing that at double the distance so do not underestimate long bow accuracy especially in someone who trained for decades. a lot of this was to handle high draw weights but accuracy alsoimproves. assuming a medieval archer has poor aim is likely a good way to die painfully

The main difference was that a crossbow was pre-loaded. A crossbowman could hold with his weapon loaded for minutes at a time waiting for a target of opportunity but a longbowman could only hold for a few seconds So a man with a crossbow could be near the front line and instantly fire a bolt through a gap in the shields or someone peering around a barricade. A Longbowman though could be a hundred feet back lobbing a large number of arrows over the front line and waiting for the law of averages to get a hit. A good analogy is the difference between Artillery and a Tank.

9:42 is just gold

Can't time being used as a deciding factor? I mean, we seen in pictures and heard of the stories of the conquistadors who ventured to the New World arming with crossbows before but never heard of a single one who is armed with a longbow. That means that crossbows are still being used alongside with early forms of firearms while longbows have been phased out by that point in time.

Bannerlord could actually be a good game for displaying some of the practicalities of either weapon. In the multiplayer, the way you use the bow and crossbow are completely different. The bow is harder to aim with because of the delay you inevitably have to deal with when drawing the bow before you can shoot and you can only draw the weapon for so long before getting tired. With a crossbow, while taking longer to span, there is no limit to how long you can aim and choose your targets.