Lets remember, what was the biggest advantage of firearms historically? Ease of training. A good archer takes years to train. Teaching someone how to shoot a gun of whatever type takes only a few days. Frankly, its much easier to become very, very good at firing a gun than it is to get very very good at firing a bow and arrow.

There is a massive difference in knowing how to use something, and being very very good with it.
If that was true, I could claim to be an expert at anything I've just managed to get the hang of.

Nobody has mentioned the real reason the firearm replaced the bow, PENETRATING POWER. An arrow has difficulty pentrating steel plate and even if it did most Knights wore chain or ring mail shirts underneath the plate which are effective in deflecting arrow strikes.

During the Middle ages the only way an archer could fell a fully armored Knight was for the arrow to hit its target at a downward angle usually where the knight's armor was weakest (neck, groin, elbow, knee, or the horse). And you would have to fire the in enormous volleys to be effective which is why Armies such as the English Army was made 1/3 to 1/2 of archers. Needless to say calculating the intercept point between a volley of arrows and the arrival of enemy charging heavy cavalry took a great amount of skill.

The advantage of the first matchlock and fuse firearms was the velocity of the ball could easily penetrate steel plate and could do as a direct fire shot and not the plunging fire method used by traditional archers. This meant that although the rate of fire was much slower, hitting the target was a much easier affair.

Nobody has mentioned the real reason the firearm replaced the bow, PENETRATING POWER

Mmarsh I think it was mentioned in my earlier post i.e.

A related question, which has always fascinated me, is why did muskets eventually replace the fast loading bow? The 2 obvious answers are a) they could penetrate armour more effectively.

I think this is why crossbows temporarily came back into favour just before firearms as well, since they could also penetrate armour. Armour had also substantially improved between the early and late middle ages.

Speculating a little, I have often wondered how effective an automatic loading crossbow would be at close range into a solid pack of infantry. Imagine a powerful crossbow or ballista type weapon which is drawn by a line of 'pullers' using a rowing type technique (using the leg muscles for the draw). Every time the crossbow is drawn another arrow or bolt falls from a 'magazine' placed on top. This type of arrangement could have released an almost certain kill every second, and could have been operated by infantry and one aimer otherwise standing around doing nothing. Surprised no-one ever thought of this, it requires a mechanism , but nothing beyond the technology of the ancients or capabilities of an Archimedes.

Originally Posted by bulldogg

Ok whatever you're smoking, I want some because its obviously wicked strong mate.

I got some lying on my desk, here you go....



...damn! There seems to be some kind of barrier between me and those letters which represent you.

On topic: I think having the skillz to manufacture a bow and arrow is more useful if you're split apart from your battle group (because you mis-parachuted/escaped from an enemy POW camp, or got separated in battle) are without weapons and few tools...On your way back to friendly lines you want to avoid combat, but if yo absolutely have no other option, a bow & arrow sure would be useful, don't you think?


A friend of mine once wondered why Welsh Longbows were no longer used in the Napoleonic times. I had no answer but he claimed that it took longer for a musket (or whatever firearms they had back then) to reload then it did for a longbow, longbows were more precise and had a range comparable to that of a firearm.

It takes 10 years to be proficient with a longbow: what, 40 days to be a master of a musket? Now - arm 500 000 men. Take your pick.

Balistically speaking a peice of metal traveling at 1,000 feet per second does more damage than one traveling at 300 feet per second.

Anyone ever try to string a 150 pound longbow? Do it a few hundred times in a battle and you'll see why muskets were very much sought after back then.

Just a few thoughts on the issue at hand.

Interesting question--I suppose that the answer is based on circumstances.

If my life were on the line, I would prefer a modern handgun (about .45 caliber) with a good supply of ammunition. That said, I always try to remember that, "A handgun is only useful for fighting your way back to the rilfe that you shouldn't have left behind" (I forget who said that but is makes sense).

According to Frederick Smith's 'Waterloo' regarding muskets

"In ideal conditions, there was one misfire for every four shots. In battle conditions three misfires for every four shots were not uncommon. The reason was because the musket had to receive the correct amount of powder and humidity, sweat or rain would render the powder useless and one if not all are present on the battlefield.... With only two shots a minute under ideal conditions it is something of a mystery why archers who could have fired fifteen times as many lethal arrows in the same time had gone out of favour"

I am surprised why they didn't think of replacing the musket with something like a grenade launcher.

Well, if my life was on the line, i'd take the bow. It's much quicker to reload, you can re-use most ammunition fired, and, a good one, is that not many people can keep running with an arrow through whichever limb you happen to pierce. A bullet would more than likely go through, or be trapped inside, only causing bursts of pain on a direct impact on the wound or around the wound, much like a splinter. However, an arrow sticking out of your arm is likely to catch on just about everything around you, and so, you ain't gonna be able to keep movin'.