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In lugnet.loc.au, Richard Parsons writes:
> In lugnet.loc.au, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:
>
> > Longbows were replaced by firearms, not crossbows, and that was primarily out
> > of disuse more than effectiveness.
>
> Cool.
>
> How come longbows fell into disuse? And and how come we bothered with
> crossbows at all?
>
> I love finding out about this stuff :-)
>
> Regards
>
> Richard
> Still baldly going...
Crossbows were easy to use - there was a lot less training required. Years
less, to be specific. They were good in castle defense when rate of fire was
less important and a pre-drawn bow was valuable - as little time exposed as
possible. The most common crossbows (as opposed to the later windlass drawn
steel arbelests) were cocked by a claw holding onto the string at the archer's
belt and the bow pulled down with a foot stirrup, so it was much more powerful
than a short bow. The only real thing bad about it was it's rate of fire.
Further, they were in broad use before the English longbow came into use. And
the French did NOT trust their peasantry with longbows, unlike the English.
:-)
Longbows fell out of use by sheer laziness. They were still effective in
combat at the time, but people literally found other distractions and a long
enough period of peace that not enough kept up the old skills. "Shall we go
shoot at the butts, or 'ave a game o' skittles an' a beer?" Crossbows were
greatly replaced by longbows in England after the Welsh campaigns (it really
was the Welsh longbow, though a case can be made for them picking it up from
the Vikings, who had a fairly long and powerful bow). Longbows just withered
away on their own - kinda think of it as all those wimpy suitors that couldn't
string Odysseus' powerful bow, much less draw it.
Bruce
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