Shooting speed of Lonbow and Crossbow

Weapons that made Britain, Channel 4.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• bow
• Crossbow
• Longbow

[Jam971]

@SepherStar Well if your rich enough learning the long bow is irrelevant most of the time unless you want to hunt with it, the rich learnt how to ride horses, how to use a lance, practising with swords and various other weapons ... no real time for the fickle bow used by the commoners. Where as a commoner can use his bow to hunt, to earn a living and to fight with, if he was using it daily or practising daily he'd certainly be a good bowman. Backgrounds do matter at this age.

[SepherStar]

I thought boys were taught how to use the long bow at a young age, peasant or not.

[CoronelMarmota]

@tigranvartanovitch You're right, but bear in mind, in medieval times you didn't have standing professional armies like in modern days. Your standard army would be composed mostly of peasants, who weren't so much trained as drafted, given a weapon and padding (if they were lucky). Training these guys as soldiers was too expensive and time consuming, and besides they were needed in the fields. With a crossbow and minimal training, they could inflict a few casualties among enemy knights.

[TheIrishryan]

The modern day crossbow out compets todays long bow when it comes to speed and strength

[MrBedlam75]

Kind of a biased test. The crossbow soldier could have put his bolts in the ground as well, but other than that, a crossbowman could use the shield to bench his bow for more accuracy, and he could keep his weapon cocked and ready while hidden or behind a crenellation, or up his draw weight with a windlass and far exceed a longbow’s penetration power. Good for different things, but a really biased comparison. Also, all weapons take skill to use. Ease of use is actually a good thing anyway.

[leziath]

@cptmiche No muscle memory needed? So you need to constantly think about every detail? How's that a good thing? Muscle memory is what allows you to carry out tasks without needing to think about every tiny thing - I can touch type because of muscle memory, I don't need to examine the keyboard and search out each letter. I'd rather have muscle memory for something that was going to keep me and my teammates alive, thank you. 

[clintdelicious]

@cptmiche untrue, knights could easily be subdued by numbers only! They only stayed safe by staying in groups and using bodyguards who were expendable.

[clintdelicious]

@WitheringintheDark Its mainly training the muscles as full power longbows have a really high draw weight. At this time people practiced from a young age though so there were enough people about who could use them, crossbows must have been far far more expensive too

[MLy1996]

@tigranvartanovitch the best training for a solider starts when its the real thing 

[hqkill]

Crossbow PWNS Bow