Crossbow had been reinvented several time in several place. The Chinese balista and crossbow were recovered from Qin shi huang, some variant was fitted with a level action and detachable magazine repeating cross bow, sadly it was still being used during opium war.
@loadedClownZ Yes, at the battle of Agincourt, the French had crossbowmen, but the English longbows defeated the French knights and crossbowmen. Also, in tightly packed masses, the reload rate of a longbow would be more effective than the punching power of the crossbow.
@JB24971 True the English Longbowman can shoot faster & have better penetration through armor than crossbow.but to use an English crossbow you need more time to train & the strength to use it properly but the crossbow is just point & shoot even a peasant who have no talent on archery can kill a full armored knight.
@RyanBrooksby well the longest ever recorded shot with an english longbow is 400 yards but on average a heavier bow like a warbow on average could get 200-250
Seeing all the paraphernalia required for the crossbow puts me in mind of the sniper rifle, especially the windlass set up, which would have made reloading a longer process than the relatively straightforward drawing and notching of the longbow. Perhaps a combination of both, with the longbows providing a steady stream of covering fire, and the crossbow using it's superior range and power to take down the more heavily armoured targets, at a greater distance.
It's actually a better comparison to the longbow than other videos on youtube, which focus only on rate of fire, as opposed to the accuracy, power, and the ability to shoot the arbalest from various positions, cocked and ready.
3:30 are they really shooting towards the watermelon when there is a guy in the line of fire (making the melon move)? I know he's behind plywood but that still seems rather precarious...
Arbalest is, at least as I read on several sites (also called in Age of Empires II (which I believe have a very good research team) has a steel or metal bow, rather than yew or elm...or so I heard
Ya all that may be true, but bowmen could get off 3 times more arrows than a crossbowman, and for a crossbow to be equal in power to a longbow, it would have to be 3 times more pounds in draw weight. Since many bowmen used 130 lb bows or more in those days, crossbows would have to be 400 lbs. or more for that power! 150 lb longbow= 450 lb. crossbow!
this show is pretty inaccurate. No archer would hold there bow at full draw waiting for a target appear. a decent instinctive archer can draw and release an arrow relatively quickly. a good archer can out shoot a medieval crossbow as far as accuracy as well. an archer can shoot 2 to 5 times faster. the main reason for the popularity of the crossbow was its ease of use, not that it was a superior weapon. few accurate comparisons can be made today because not many people can draw a 185 longbow.
@ProtestantIRA The repeating crossbow is uniquely Chinese. They had invented a crossbow for rapid firing. But this crossbow lacked greater penetration power of a regular crossbow. The Chinese compensated this weakness with poison. The bolts are smeared with poison and a mere scratch can kill a man. Thousands of such weapon on a battlefield will inflict psychological terror on a charging cavalry and infantry.
Also about training, you can train someone to shoot a bow within a few weeks. He won't be a crack shot but he'll hit his target. Also the arrow shoots much farther than the crossbow, while the arrow arcs slightly, the bolt drops rapidly. And in many battles, you'll find that archers trashed crossbowmen simply because they outranged them by far.
@kyleisreallycool You can train someone to shoot a bow within weeks if you teach them the proper techniques. They won't be expert marksman but they can put arrows down range. I've taught an archery class before. Within a few weeks they can draw the arrow correctly, aim at the target with moderate accuracy and release. All of it can be taught within weeks as long as the student listens.
target archery and archery for hunting is quite different from archery in warfare. consider the draw weights longbowman handled, estimated in the 80 to 185# range, compared to 40 - 60# most adult males are able to shoot without training. to shoot these weights accurately takes quite a long time, one reference states "Skeletons of longbow archers are recognisably deformed, with enlarged left arms and often bone spurs on left wrists, left shoulders and right fingers."
The crossbow while it has armor piercing abilities, you have to get very close for this to even be possible. The longbow had much greater range, accuracy and speed. And the crossbow is not as easy as people think, if you draw back a crossbow with the string off center that bolt will go anywhere. The crossbow is also much more tiring if you are hand spanning due to the high draw. While this can be solved with whinches, these make reloading take longer than it would to reload a musket.
@camushushuaia - The british longbow made of yew had a drawweight of 150 pounds but it cost a lot more than the equivalent of 200 dollars and took four months to make and a lifetime of training to use properly.
@crazyviking24 a good bowyer can make a yew longbow in a few hours. also a good stave of yew costs around 200 dollar and a finished bow is around 800 in todays money.
@kyleisreallycool Actually that isn't true. Most historians agree that to properly cure the wood and craft the bow properly would take about 4 months. That is why they were so expensive in Medieval period.
@crazyviking24 Crossbow is an expensive weapon in Medieval Europe and only elite units are equiped with it. However the Chinese has the industrial capacity to mass produce crossbow during the 3rd Century BC. Archeologists had discovered the bolts and trigger mechanicism found in the tomb of China's First Emperor had standardized measurements. This allows thousands of conscripts to be armed for war.
@GMSamuelRhine eh, not talking about modern day crossbows, a well trained archer with a longbow/composite bow had almost all advantages, speed, accuracy, range, power you name it, the crossbow's only advantage was that you didn't need as much training with it and could equip a much larger army with it
@GMSamuelRhine the bow MAY be better, but it require so much practice time to use this. the crossbow, anyone could use it. so, instead of paying for practice ranges bows ARROWS which is the most expansive part to pay, then all the years of practice, so many times every archers could die in melee fighting you end up, you paid so much for dead people. crossbows can at least keep your soldier alive way longer than archers of course the archer shoot farther and all, but is it really worth the money?
@oly355 from the perspective of a king no it really isnt. not to say i wouldnt have some archers but my range would probly focus a bit on crossbow men. i do think it works great when paired with polearms. when me and my friends did SCA we'd have some crossbows behind the spears. although the effieciency is just mostly in the high rate of fire in range but i am more in favor of the crossbow which i sorta said in my first comment on here
@oly355 from the perspective of a king no it really isnt. not to say i wouldnt have some archers but my range would probly focus a bit on crossbow men. i do think it works great when paired with polearms. when me and my friends did SCA we'd have some crossbows behind the spears. although the effieciency is just mostly in the high rate of fire in range but i am more in favor of the crossbow which i sorta said in my first comment on here
@marichard888 yes, but it takes so much time to get an archer being efficient. so many years before bringing him to battle. and just probably die because of another archer on the other side. a crossbow is more like a, pay once for good services kind of soldier. you get my point? :P
Against a later-era Arbalest, you won't have any advanage in range and be flat-out beaten in temrs of hitting power. As fo accuracy, on anything but direct-fire at short range, both are weapons to be used en masse to bombard an area target. And at short range, a skilled crossbowman will do just as fine as an archer.
Uh...really? Because ive always read otherwise. They need a MUCH higher draw weight to roughly equal the same power as a bow, yet they would still not have the same range because of the extremely short size and draw length. Crossbows may be great at some things, but not everything. Otherwise, armies would have stopped using bowmen. I know shows like this are for entertainment, but come on. Im more entertained by facts when I watch these types of shows.
Also the cross bow would need to have 3 times the poundage of the English Long bow to equal the strangth because 1: There is not room without makin it aquard or imobal to but the leangth of a bow sideways across the tiller. 2: The tiller ubstructes the bending tiller of the bow therfor not using all the energy stored in a full curve.
P.S. 1:50 to 1:60, That must be a really weak bow if the arrow isnt breaking when its being held like that, its painful to watch!
It is true the cross bow was strong at close range (not necasarely stronger than the English Longbow) but its main strangth came from the fact that a crossbowmen only needed a few weeks a training versus the warbow which took usually seven years. But The English Longbow Could shoot a hell of a lot further still knoking a knight of his horse, and could shoot many, many more arrows than the cross bow could bolts. Plus the Longbowman was not as valnerable as the crossbowman reloading.
@Agincourtwarbow A good example of why the Longbow is superior to the cross bow on the battle field would be the opening moves at Crecy. Judging by your username, I assume you're already familiar with that battle ;)
@StormchaserKnight Thank you, yes I have a deep obsession with this time period and the weapons of the time. And I have trouble holding my toung when I see bull shit.
@Agincourtwarbow It's good to get in touch with a kindred spirit for once =D I too am obsessed with medieval warfare. I would love to try my hand at learning to use a Longsword, but alas the only place in the UK that teaches that is several hundred miles away :(
@StormchaserKnight Aye same to you! Thats depressing about comute youd half to make I feel sorryfor you! I would of thoght there would be lots of oppertunities for that kind of thing, atleast more that in canada. Anyways have a very merry christmas sir it has been nice to meet kindred spirit!
the byzantines also recorded the crossbow being used i think when the crusaders sacked constantinople, theyd span the bowstring on the ground with the aid of their feet and pull it towards them horizontal to the ground
Xbow never competed on range with the bow. It competed on power and ease of use. You can become proficient with a xbow in a week or 2, bow takes years of constant practice. And from 1300 or so on, when they started using steel plate, bow was simply not powerful enuf to penetrate the armor, except at very close range.
The longbow was better, faster rate of fire, more efficient, more powerful, easier to transport, better arrows, cheaper to produce and it retained it's power, more accurate over range. The only advantage of the crossbow was it's ease of use. Only during the late middle ages did the crossbow compete on power and range.
@sniperfish Actually a good longbow took up to four months to make and could take a lifetime to train with. A crossbow could could be mass produced at a blacksmith or carpenter (depending on the materials) and took only a few minutes of training. Obviously the longbow had a better rate of fire but it was cheaper to make the crossbow and its bolts so many nations switched to the crossbow.
@crazyviking24 REALLY?!? Where did you find that out? As far as I was aware a bowyer could easily knock (geddit?) up a war bow in day with everything to hand. Crossbows on the other hand would take a while especially the composite horn ones. And the Longbow requiring on piece of wood was cheap. Why do you think the French hired Genoese mercinaries? In anycase I was talking of the capabilities of the weapons,not the people using them.
@sniperfish A welsh long bow made from yew takes about four months because the wood needs to be cured properly to get the right tensile strength. Crossbows could be mass produced overtime as the various parts became made of metal. The steel could simply be poured into a mold. There was a basic shortbow usually made out of willow or ash that was sometimes used in France and other contintental countries but it was of poor quality.
@crazyviking24 I would be interested to read where you got that information from (the best book on longbows is out of print and I'm having trouble finding a decent one) I don't think people of the period we are discussing had the capacity to melt steel. Most fixtures on the crossbow were brass. The steel prod appeared around about 1370 ish and it was at this time that the best crossbows became prohibitively expensive, affording the user a similar rank of a knight. Hence Genoese mercinaries.
@crazyviking24 Truth is they were both easy to pick up, the only problem with the war bow is building up the muscle enough to use a decently powered bow. The accuracy that can be achieved with a crossbow, with little training is a given, it's more intuitive, the same accuracy needs time to develop with a bow, but this is all beside the point. In medieval military archery accuraccy wasn't really as important as ranging your weapon was.
Crossbow had been reinvented several time in several place. The Chinese balista and crossbow were recovered from Qin shi huang, some variant was fitted with a level action and detachable magazine repeating cross bow, sadly it was still being used during opium war.
HMSBeagle200 1 week ago
I just started watching this series on youtube and love it.
Domo230 2 weeks ago
what i would do to get one of these badboys
jauk3 3 weeks ago
man i like watching a british guy talk about crap
animation1234111 1 month ago in playlist More videos from Hudson2150
Ironically, one of the fastest loading weapons in the ancient world was also a cross-bow: The Chinese Repeating Crossbow.
shaider1982 2 months ago
a crossbow bolt could now way fly further than a longbows arrow, maybe faster and more accurately at close range but now way further
loadedClownZ 2 months ago
@loadedClownZ Yes, at the battle of Agincourt, the French had crossbowmen, but the English longbows defeated the French knights and crossbowmen. Also, in tightly packed masses, the reload rate of a longbow would be more effective than the punching power of the crossbow.
JB24971 1 month ago
@JB24971 True the English Longbowman can shoot faster & have better penetration through armor than crossbow.but to use an English crossbow you need more time to train & the strength to use it properly but the crossbow is just point & shoot even a peasant who have no talent on archery can kill a full armored knight.
reashot 2 weeks ago
@loadedClownZ
A Crossbow maybe 20-40 yards, English Longbows up to 100 yards.
RyanBrooksby 2 weeks ago
@RyanBrooksby well the longest ever recorded shot with an english longbow is 400 yards but on average a heavier bow like a warbow on average could get 200-250
loadedClownZ 2 weeks ago
its the best tv series i ever see
Theoden555X 2 months ago
Thank you for uploading.
soundtrackiwalkto 4 months ago
Seeing all the paraphernalia required for the crossbow puts me in mind of the sniper rifle, especially the windlass set up, which would have made reloading a longer process than the relatively straightforward drawing and notching of the longbow. Perhaps a combination of both, with the longbows providing a steady stream of covering fire, and the crossbow using it's superior range and power to take down the more heavily armoured targets, at a greater distance.
Nightlightknight 5 months ago
Holy moly thats awesome!!!!!!!!!!
00LEGENDS00 5 months ago
but still, longbow is better!
valttu94 5 months ago
1:25 DAMN THEY HAD CAMERAS BACK THEN@!?@!
mcdudly00 5 months ago
It's actually a better comparison to the longbow than other videos on youtube, which focus only on rate of fire, as opposed to the accuracy, power, and the ability to shoot the arbalest from various positions, cocked and ready.
MrBedlam75 5 months ago
even whats supposed to be an educational program this is like watching MTV.
US tv, keeping the people dumbed down as much as possible.
tedmaulz 5 months ago
Crossbow the AK47 of the darkage
Jesper987654321 6 months ago
3:30 are they really shooting towards the watermelon when there is a guy in the line of fire (making the melon move)? I know he's behind plywood but that still seems rather precarious...
TheAccidentprone 6 months ago
Still pretty much bullshit in between it, but sadly the best Conquest-Medieval I've seen so far.
Wikingersohn93 7 months ago
Arbalest are greek not medieval
cjmation7 7 months ago
@TheHumbleCat I know right how scripted is this thing
pandamanwoooo 8 months ago
@pandamanwoooo the guys are so gay
boharihamen 8 months ago
Arbalest is, at least as I read on several sites (also called in Age of Empires II (which I believe have a very good research team) has a steel or metal bow, rather than yew or elm...or so I heard
gaoth88 9 months ago
@gaoth88 Thats true in later periods when the crossbow was more used
TheMHandDSfan 8 months ago
a normal bow is easyer to laod as a crossbow
paffen112 9 months ago
Guys, im uploading some conquest episodes that arent here in youtube yet, so check my channel :D
Lucasmwagner 9 months ago 22
Ya all that may be true, but bowmen could get off 3 times more arrows than a crossbowman, and for a crossbow to be equal in power to a longbow, it would have to be 3 times more pounds in draw weight. Since many bowmen used 130 lb bows or more in those days, crossbows would have to be 400 lbs. or more for that power! 150 lb longbow= 450 lb. crossbow!
TheArchery97 9 months ago
this show is pretty inaccurate. No archer would hold there bow at full draw waiting for a target appear. a decent instinctive archer can draw and release an arrow relatively quickly. a good archer can out shoot a medieval crossbow as far as accuracy as well. an archer can shoot 2 to 5 times faster. the main reason for the popularity of the crossbow was its ease of use, not that it was a superior weapon. few accurate comparisons can be made today because not many people can draw a 185 longbow.
shonuffisthemaster 9 months ago
"Zee shaped"?!?! Your British, aren't you? that's "zed"!
busterpiggle 9 months ago
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dewdaw 10 months ago
Comment removed
dewdaw 10 months ago
No repeating crossbows? Aw come on. That's a great weapon and was just as old.
DavidUmstattd 11 months ago
@DavidUmstattd true but I think the show focusus on European weapons and the repeating crossbow was Chinese.
ProtestantIRA 10 months ago
@ProtestantIRA The repeating crossbow is uniquely Chinese. They had invented a crossbow for rapid firing. But this crossbow lacked greater penetration power of a regular crossbow. The Chinese compensated this weakness with poison. The bolts are smeared with poison and a mere scratch can kill a man. Thousands of such weapon on a battlefield will inflict psychological terror on a charging cavalry and infantry.
MrLantean 9 months ago
Also about training, you can train someone to shoot a bow within a few weeks. He won't be a crack shot but he'll hit his target. Also the arrow shoots much farther than the crossbow, while the arrow arcs slightly, the bolt drops rapidly. And in many battles, you'll find that archers trashed crossbowmen simply because they outranged them by far.
WolfOfBloodAndBone 11 months ago
@WolfOfBloodAndBone you cant train someone to shoot a 150 lb warbow in a few weeks
kyleisreallycool 11 months ago
@kyleisreallycool You can train someone to shoot a bow within weeks if you teach them the proper techniques. They won't be expert marksman but they can put arrows down range. I've taught an archery class before. Within a few weeks they can draw the arrow correctly, aim at the target with moderate accuracy and release. All of it can be taught within weeks as long as the student listens.
WolfOfBloodAndBone 11 months ago
@WolfOfBloodAndBone
target archery and archery for hunting is quite different from archery in warfare. consider the draw weights longbowman handled, estimated in the 80 to 185# range, compared to 40 - 60# most adult males are able to shoot without training. to shoot these weights accurately takes quite a long time, one reference states "Skeletons of longbow archers are recognisably deformed, with enlarged left arms and often bone spurs on left wrists, left shoulders and right fingers."
shonuffisthemaster 9 months ago
The crossbow while it has armor piercing abilities, you have to get very close for this to even be possible. The longbow had much greater range, accuracy and speed. And the crossbow is not as easy as people think, if you draw back a crossbow with the string off center that bolt will go anywhere. The crossbow is also much more tiring if you are hand spanning due to the high draw. While this can be solved with whinches, these make reloading take longer than it would to reload a musket.
WolfOfBloodAndBone 11 months ago
Very important safety tip! Never ever do what Peter did at 5:08!
Trust me it is a very bad idea!
spectre111 11 months ago
A longbow has a wider range of fire, and can be shot faster, but needed years of training...
ExtremeDeathman 11 months ago
i rlly want a crossbow
sol200997 1 year ago
what about the bellybow? or does it not count as a crossbow?
Dechthem 1 year ago
Those nuts hold alot of power behind them and can be used to devastating effect.
jaknife99 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Check out my crossbow vid!
Senorsuperpowers 1 year ago
ballista isn't a crossbow its a catapult
Midnighter169 1 year ago
aw hell yea i love this guy's show
thx for uploading
Sturmmann 1 year ago 13
and crossbows are really really more cheap than bows.... for 200 bucks you can have a 150lb crossbow, but there no one bow of 150lb for that price...
camushushuaia 1 year ago
@camushushuaia - The british longbow made of yew had a drawweight of 150 pounds but it cost a lot more than the equivalent of 200 dollars and took four months to make and a lifetime of training to use properly.
crazyviking24 1 year ago
@crazyviking24 a good bowyer can make a yew longbow in a few hours. also a good stave of yew costs around 200 dollar and a finished bow is around 800 in todays money.
kyleisreallycool 11 months ago
@kyleisreallycool Actually that isn't true. Most historians agree that to properly cure the wood and craft the bow properly would take about 4 months. That is why they were so expensive in Medieval period.
crazyviking24 11 months ago
@crazyviking24 Crossbow is an expensive weapon in Medieval Europe and only elite units are equiped with it. However the Chinese has the industrial capacity to mass produce crossbow during the 3rd Century BC. Archeologists had discovered the bolts and trigger mechanicism found in the tomb of China's First Emperor had standardized measurements. This allows thousands of conscripts to be armed for war.
MrLantean 9 months ago
there are some advantages to each but even though i favor the cross bow a little more the bow is still alot mor efficient and a way better weapon
GMSamuelRhine 1 year ago
@GMSamuelRhine eh, not talking about modern day crossbows, a well trained archer with a longbow/composite bow had almost all advantages, speed, accuracy, range, power you name it, the crossbow's only advantage was that you didn't need as much training with it and could equip a much larger army with it
Jaahaah 1 year ago
@Jaahaah there was not part in that comment referring to modern corss bows. and i did mention that the bow is way better
GMSamuelRhine 1 year ago
@GMSamuelRhine the bow MAY be better, but it require so much practice time to use this. the crossbow, anyone could use it. so, instead of paying for practice ranges bows ARROWS which is the most expansive part to pay, then all the years of practice, so many times every archers could die in melee fighting you end up, you paid so much for dead people. crossbows can at least keep your soldier alive way longer than archers of course the archer shoot farther and all, but is it really worth the money?
oly355 1 year ago
@oly355 from the perspective of a king no it really isnt. not to say i wouldnt have some archers but my range would probly focus a bit on crossbow men. i do think it works great when paired with polearms. when me and my friends did SCA we'd have some crossbows behind the spears. although the effieciency is just mostly in the high rate of fire in range but i am more in favor of the crossbow which i sorta said in my first comment on here
GMSamuelRhine 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@oly355 from the perspective of a king no it really isnt. not to say i wouldnt have some archers but my range would probly focus a bit on crossbow men. i do think it works great when paired with polearms. when me and my friends did SCA we'd have some crossbows behind the spears. although the effieciency is just mostly in the high rate of fire in range but i am more in favor of the crossbow which i sorta said in my first comment on here
GMSamuelRhine 1 year ago
@oly355 I was always one to assume a cross bow wouldv e have cost much more than a bow?
Also, mercernary fees weren't cheap
marichard888 1 year ago
@marichard888 yes, but it takes so much time to get an archer being efficient. so many years before bringing him to battle. and just probably die because of another archer on the other side. a crossbow is more like a, pay once for good services kind of soldier. you get my point? :P
oly355 1 year ago
@Jaahaah
Against a later-era Arbalest, you won't have any advanage in range and be flat-out beaten in temrs of hitting power. As fo accuracy, on anything but direct-fire at short range, both are weapons to be used en masse to bombard an area target. And at short range, a skilled crossbowman will do just as fine as an archer.
Magni56 1 year ago
6:34
Uh...really? Because ive always read otherwise. They need a MUCH higher draw weight to roughly equal the same power as a bow, yet they would still not have the same range because of the extremely short size and draw length. Crossbows may be great at some things, but not everything. Otherwise, armies would have stopped using bowmen. I know shows like this are for entertainment, but come on. Im more entertained by facts when I watch these types of shows.
LotusDragon09 1 year ago
WTF I CAN'T SEE ANY VIDEO ON YOUTUBE HELP!@#%
dfghj241 1 year ago
3:32 u kno theres a guy behind that wooden board ... i hope he has health insurance...
tayatay5 1 year ago
Great video, I'm building my own Mediterranean Crossbow and this has some really good information on it.
TheAndroooid 1 year ago
Also the cross bow would need to have 3 times the poundage of the English Long bow to equal the strangth because 1: There is not room without makin it aquard or imobal to but the leangth of a bow sideways across the tiller. 2: The tiller ubstructes the bending tiller of the bow therfor not using all the energy stored in a full curve.
P.S. 1:50 to 1:60, That must be a really weak bow if the arrow isnt breaking when its being held like that, its painful to watch!
Agincourtwarbow 1 year ago
It is true the cross bow was strong at close range (not necasarely stronger than the English Longbow) but its main strangth came from the fact that a crossbowmen only needed a few weeks a training versus the warbow which took usually seven years. But The English Longbow Could shoot a hell of a lot further still knoking a knight of his horse, and could shoot many, many more arrows than the cross bow could bolts. Plus the Longbowman was not as valnerable as the crossbowman reloading.
Agincourtwarbow 1 year ago
@Agincourtwarbow A good example of why the Longbow is superior to the cross bow on the battle field would be the opening moves at Crecy. Judging by your username, I assume you're already familiar with that battle ;)
StormchaserKnight 1 year ago
@StormchaserKnight Thank you, yes I have a deep obsession with this time period and the weapons of the time. And I have trouble holding my toung when I see bull shit.
Thank you sir :)
Agincourtwarbow 1 year ago
@Agincourtwarbow It's good to get in touch with a kindred spirit for once =D I too am obsessed with medieval warfare. I would love to try my hand at learning to use a Longsword, but alas the only place in the UK that teaches that is several hundred miles away :(
StormchaserKnight 1 year ago
@StormchaserKnight Aye same to you! Thats depressing about comute youd half to make I feel sorryfor you! I would of thoght there would be lots of oppertunities for that kind of thing, atleast more that in canada. Anyways have a very merry christmas sir it has been nice to meet kindred spirit!
Agincourtwarbow 1 year ago
my favorite crossbow is the chinese single shot crossbow SINGLE SHOT not the repeating crossbow
lewisgunner1 1 year ago
The guys seems to dont give a damn
PowerMadHeadBanger 1 year ago
lol, hey its charles o'hara from the movie the patriot.
guardman12345 1 year ago
dude do you think you can upload the Conquest - Gladiator Weapons ?
PompeusMagnus 1 year ago
that painting is no chinese.
loveryoda 1 year ago
the byzantines also recorded the crossbow being used i think when the crusaders sacked constantinople, theyd span the bowstring on the ground with the aid of their feet and pull it towards them horizontal to the ground
jabames 1 year ago
I've never heard of the pulley & hook method before.
whowantsabighug 1 year ago
Xbow never competed on range with the bow. It competed on power and ease of use. You can become proficient with a xbow in a week or 2, bow takes years of constant practice. And from 1300 or so on, when they started using steel plate, bow was simply not powerful enuf to penetrate the armor, except at very close range.
Zamolxes77 1 year ago
The longbow was better, faster rate of fire, more efficient, more powerful, easier to transport, better arrows, cheaper to produce and it retained it's power, more accurate over range. The only advantage of the crossbow was it's ease of use. Only during the late middle ages did the crossbow compete on power and range.
sniperfish 1 year ago
@sniperfish Actually a good longbow took up to four months to make and could take a lifetime to train with. A crossbow could could be mass produced at a blacksmith or carpenter (depending on the materials) and took only a few minutes of training. Obviously the longbow had a better rate of fire but it was cheaper to make the crossbow and its bolts so many nations switched to the crossbow.
crazyviking24 1 year ago
@crazyviking24 REALLY?!? Where did you find that out? As far as I was aware a bowyer could easily knock (geddit?) up a war bow in day with everything to hand. Crossbows on the other hand would take a while especially the composite horn ones. And the Longbow requiring on piece of wood was cheap. Why do you think the French hired Genoese mercinaries? In anycase I was talking of the capabilities of the weapons,not the people using them.
sniperfish 1 year ago
@sniperfish A welsh long bow made from yew takes about four months because the wood needs to be cured properly to get the right tensile strength. Crossbows could be mass produced overtime as the various parts became made of metal. The steel could simply be poured into a mold. There was a basic shortbow usually made out of willow or ash that was sometimes used in France and other contintental countries but it was of poor quality.
crazyviking24 1 year ago
@crazyviking24 I would be interested to read where you got that information from (the best book on longbows is out of print and I'm having trouble finding a decent one) I don't think people of the period we are discussing had the capacity to melt steel. Most fixtures on the crossbow were brass. The steel prod appeared around about 1370 ish and it was at this time that the best crossbows became prohibitively expensive, affording the user a similar rank of a knight. Hence Genoese mercinaries.
sniperfish 1 year ago
@crazyviking24 Truth is they were both easy to pick up, the only problem with the war bow is building up the muscle enough to use a decently powered bow. The accuracy that can be achieved with a crossbow, with little training is a given, it's more intuitive, the same accuracy needs time to develop with a bow, but this is all beside the point. In medieval military archery accuraccy wasn't really as important as ranging your weapon was.
sniperfish 1 year ago
that's not true, the cross bow took far less time to master that's why it was such an efficient weapon
nicoduski 1 year ago
what string is on the crossbow
sherk429 1 year ago
@sherk429
Linen and beewax
LunaNegraYGarcia 1 year ago