Bow and Crossbow questions

reddirtwriter

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I have a few questions about bow and crossbows. These would be traditional weapons, not modern.

Would a longbow be expected for someone who does not fight or hunt mounted on an animal?

Short recurve bows are used from horseback?

Crossbows take less skill relative to a longbow?

Crossbows are much slower to reload than someone shooting a longbow?

Didn't intend to ask leading questions, but I wanted to double check my information.
 

Patrick.S

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I'm no expert but here's my 2c.

I have a few questions about bow and crossbows. These would be traditional weapons, not modern.

Would a longbow be expected for someone who does not fight or hunt mounted on an animal?Not necessarily. Longbows are just one type of bow that became popular in Europe in the Middle Ages. There are hundreds of different styles of bows out there.

Short recurve bows are used from horseback? Bows used from horseback are short out of necessity. A longer bow would be too cumbersome. There were many different types of bows used from horseback and not near all of them were re-curved.

Crossbows take less skill relative to a longbow? Absolutely. It takes years to master a longbow and, while not easy, a crossbow could be put in the hands of someone with much less experience.

Crossbows are much slower to reload than someone shooting a longbow? Yes. Much.

Didn't intend to ask leading questions, but I wanted to double check my information.
 

Quinn_Inuit

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I've studied this a bit, especially bow construction.

I have a few questions about bow and crossbows. These would be traditional weapons, not modern.

Would a longbow be expected for someone who does not fight or hunt mounted on an animal?

Ditto Patrick S. Longbows actually don't show up that often in the historical record. And some, especially the old Indian bamboo longbows that Alexander the Great faced, took quite some time to shoot.

Short recurve bows are used from horseback?

Again, ditto Patrick S. Horse archery, especially while in motion, is an exceptionally difficult skill to learn. Like slings, most successful users were trained from childhood.

Horse-mounted javelin throwers were actually much more common. It's a lot easier to train men to do that.

Horse archers also generally needed to get pretty close to their targets, at least in the Hellenistic Period. Later bows might have been more powerful (I don't know), but back then they had to get within javelin range.

Crossbows take less skill relative to a longbow?

Crossbows are much slower to reload than someone shooting a longbow?

Big YES to both.
 

reddirtwriter

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Thanks, I appreciate the replies.

I should have clarified myself better. I was using longbow as a generic bow someone on foot might use. My mistake and I should have known better. The scenario I'm setting up the people are nomadic herdsmen/hunters and don't have riding animals. So I was trying to work out what their bows would look like. Sounds like a medium length bow sized to each person makes the most sense.
 

Trebor1415

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Thanks, I appreciate the replies.

I should have clarified myself better. I was using longbow as a generic bow someone on foot might use. My mistake and I should have known better. The scenario I'm setting up the people are nomadic herdsmen/hunters and don't have riding animals. So I was trying to work out what their bows would look like. Sounds like a medium length bow sized to each person makes the most sense.

What is their tech level? What sort of climate do they live in? What resources do they have to make bows from? Are the bows primarily hunting or war weapons?

The Welsh/English longbow was made of one piece of wood, yew was preferred, but other woods were used as substitutes. Yew grew in England so was a local material used early on and continued to be used as the bows developed over time.

A typical Yew "war bow" would be "as tall as a man" (think 6 feet or so) and have a draw weight of 100 pounds or more.

An English longbowmen trained from youth with lighter bows and worked his way up to using the full poundage war bows.

The climate of England/Wales was suitable for one piece "self" bows. The high humidity promoted growth of the yew.

The nomadic horse archers, such as Mongols (and others) used what we call a "composite" bow today. The bow would be a combination of wood, horn, and sinew, bound together with natural glue. The bows were optimized for horse archery. They were short, with a large recurve, and had a powerful draw weight. (Although not as strong a draw weight as the Longbow).

This type of construction came about from what they had available and how they used the bow and also evolved over time. As a nomadic horse people, they had access to livestock for the horn and sinew, and some access to wood for the "core" of the bow. A longer bow, like the English longbow, wouldn't work for them, so they developed a shorter bow and figured out how to get effective draw weight from that design.

The composite horn bows wouldn't have worked as well in England. The humidity would have caused problems. And, the nomadic tribes didn't have access to the old, tall, stands of yew to make those types of bows. So you can see how each type was developed to meet the needs of their users from the materials on hand and suitable to their region and style of use.

If your characters are nomadic, and don't have horses, it sounds like we're talking about a pretty primitive culture. I'd go with a simple self-bow. Not as tall as the English longbow, due to the lack of access to suitable "sraight and tall" wood, but basically a wooden stick bow.

You could also justify some simplier composite bows. Wood core strengthened with sinew and bone, but not as fully developed as the nomadic horse archers horn bows.

As to bow length, think if it in terms of technology, not just length of the bow. The question to ask is "how sophisticated is the bow" based on their tech level and resources, not "how long is the bow."
 

Nivarion

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A cross bow is a lot slower than a longbow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HagCuGXJgUs

One thing a lot of people don't know about them also, is the poundage of a crossbow in medieval times was much less efficient than a longbow. A 120 pound longbow (if I remember properly) has the same amount of arrow accelerating power as a 300lb crossbow.

Crossbows and in their own way a longbow were relatively easy to make. It does take a lot more material and a lot more skill to make a longbow that will last.

It takes a longbow man about a year to achieve minimum efficiency with a light longbow. A soldier who used a heavy draw weight one would often train for about seven years, beginning between 7 and 12.

A cross bow had a training time of about 20 minutes.

Despite a lot of popular myth, a crossbow wasn't an armor piercing monster. Chain mail and crossbows coexisted until the introduction of the firearm, when the use of plate armor came into popularity. Plate could stop most firearms of the day, and crossbows were even less of a threat.
 

blacbird

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Horse archery, especially while in motion, is an exceptionally difficult skill to learn. Like slings, most successful users were trained from childhood.

Horse-mounted javelin throwers were actually much more common. It's a lot easier to train men to do that.

Horse archers also generally needed to get pretty close to their targets, at least in the Hellenistic Period. Later bows might have been more powerful (I don't know), but back then they had to get within javelin range.

By far the best horse-mounted archers were the Mongols of Genghis Khan and his successor grandson, Kublai Khan. Their bows, recurved and made from laminates of animal horn, were phenomenally good, and they were trained in quick reloading tactics. They conquered a greater area of the Earth's land surface than did any other society. European armies were simply no match for them.

They retreated, as I understand, only because Kublai Khan's death left a leadership vacuum.

caw
 

Michael Davis

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I've used three types of bows to hunt: Crossbow, compound, recurve, and stick (simple bend stick). Cross bow does take longer and mine (Excalibur) requires 150 pull to cock. Stick requires the most skill. Compound pull force decreases as you pull back (modern has 80% let off). Stick requires most skill and emulates what they used on horseback.