Musket vs Crossbow

[IndiaQuinn]

...

I can teach you in 1 day how to fire a bow, its not hard at all ... infact its much less complicated than firing a musket of the 1700's and still easier than breach loaders of the 1800's.

A militia of archers in England was never a challenge at all to get hold of, but its the pulling weight that needs training of physical strength, its not different than modern day military fitness training. 1 Sunday a week would have your pulling a decent weight in 6 months, and if you practised every 2 days then you'd probably have a stronger bow ... but teaching you the basics of archery in a day is no problem at all ... its accuracy and ability to cope under pressure that suffer, the same problem with muskets.

...

Problem is your probably comparing the 1300-1400's to the 1800's after the indutrial revolution its like comparing the modern day to the 1600's. We can mass produce millions but why couldn't the 1600's do it? ... well the time scale helps a lot plus level of technology.

The L8 Susat was better than the musket I wonder why we replaced it? ... well there you go the technology level.

The longbow should really be compared to this:

(click to show/hide)

Something that was used just after the longbows prime not 500-400 years after its prime.

It is indeed, as mentioned by others as well, a bit senseless to compare the era´s. And it is not one factor that cause the age of gunpowder.
As you say, archery is greatly a physical movement, the training will take much longer, than loading a musket, point it somewhat into a direction and fire it.  A militia in England was probably never to hard to find as there were traditionally lots of archers (hunting). And during a long period in the medieval era farmers were obliged to train every week. Those guys were actually quite expensive (they were well paid too) as they basically trained their entire live. Quite different to the cannon fodder a couple of centuries later.

In contrast to the medieval era in the 17th century most countries had evolved into states. And the military was becoming more and more professional, strategy and manouvering evolving with it.
I am sure if you put 1000 archers vs 1000 musket men and skip all the other factors. The archers would win as long as it did not become a melee. Now why did they really skip the archery (including the crossbows)? I think the main reason was the cost.

[WaffleBorn]

It takes more time and money to arm and train a company of crossbowmen/longbowmen and pikemen to guard them than it takes to arm and train a line infantryman.

[Kator Viridian]

I'm going to state again ...

ARMOUR was the reason for the Longbow and crossbow coming out of use, not its cost, because training someone to make blackpowder yet alone getting black powder through the "Cake" and "baking" techniques cost more than an archer per day ... let alone the cost to train someone to use the blackpowder and the costs of weapons and armours for them.

An Archer was your trained peasantry, sometimes even a well paid peasant who could ride a horse and had his own. During the time blackpowder was VERY VERY VERY expensive but compared to bows it was creaping ahead in the arms race. Now when the bow started to go out of business around the 1500-1600's the matchlock had arrived, now the matchlocks still cost more than an archer, way more due to them having to be mercenaries ... Charles V Emporer of the Holy Roman empire took an interest into arbequeses but guess what ... he had more crossbows and archers in his ranks ... why? because they were cheaper.

Now we have distinguished that the cost of blackpowder was significantly more than the bow we can start to explain why it went out (Which as i've been explaining before if you read):

Armour

Armour had come a long way, by the 1500's armour completely encased a man in plate armour, resulting in:

(click to show/hide)

The spread of the lombardian and italian plate meant that the bow had to keep up, but it couldn't, it had reached its maximum weight pulled of 150-200 pounds and was no longer piercing armour, so it came down to survival of nations, upgrade and pay more or die out ... Arbequeses and matchlocks then became more popular, hence to the evolution of matchlocks and finally muskets.

If armour had not evolved into the lombardian hardened plate ... well there would be no muskets.

In conclusion, Armour killed the longbow ... not money, technology or the far fetched idea of muskets.

[rejenorst]

In conclusion... "WOMEN USE SWORDS! MEN USE CAAAAANON!!!"

[Urgnot]

Interesting.

[berserkergang]

scenario 1(pre bayonet Muskets)
I would think another simple reason to use musket men(with pikemen who usually wore armour, there would also be halberdier men and guys armed with Flamberges to chop of pike tips in melee if it came to that.) vs bowmen( with pike men ) the bows would not do much damage to pikemen.

scenario 2(Bayonet Muskets)
Two if two armies of equal number were to fight. 1 musket men with bayonets lets say 5000 vs 3000 crossbowmen and 2000 pike men. The Second army has reduced fire power due to having to equip some of its men with pikes. Also because the bowmen would have to group together with the pikemen it would create a massive target for artillery which by Napoleonic times was a lot more accurate than in the past. Thirdly Distance of an enemy is more important with a bow or crossbow and with smoke obscuring the field bows would suffer from less accuracy were muskets could pointed in the general direction of the enemy and would score hits as long as they were in operational distance. Muskets were so deadly by this point battles were often decide by shooting alone so pike men would have no other role than to prevent enemy cavalry from charging and would be shot to pieces, not to forget cavalry had there own guns as well with which they could now kill the pikemen with rather than risking melee.

[Kona_Kona67]

In conclusion, Armour killed the longbow ... not money, technology or the far fetched idea of muskets.

That.. is pretty cool to know.

Thanks for sharing this info!

[Kator Viridian]

scenario 1(pre bayonet Muskets)
I would think another simple reason to use musket men(with pikemen who usually wore armour, there would also be halberdier men and guys armed with Flamberges to chop of pike tips in melee if it came to that.) vs bowmen( with pike men ) the bows would not do much damage to pikemen.

scenario 2(Bayonet Muskets)
Two if two armies of equal number were to fight. 1 musket men with bayonets lets say 5000 vs 3000 crossbowmen and 2000 pike men. The Second army has reduced fire power due to having to equip some of its men with pikes. Also because the bowmen would have to group together with the pikemen it would create a massive target for artillery which by Napoleonic times was a lot more accurate than in the past. Thirdly Distance of an enemy is more important with a bow or crossbow and with smoke obscuring the field bows would suffer from less accuracy were muskets could pointed in the general direction of the enemy and would score hits as long as they were in operational distance. Muskets were so deadly by this point battles were often decide by shooting alone so pike men would have no other role than to prevent enemy cavalry from charging and would be shot to pieces, not to forget cavalry had there own guns as well with which they could now kill the pikemen with rather than risking melee.

O.o

Have you seen the armour on pikemen? especially in the 1600's, its practically well ... cloth, perfect targets for bow.

Also one your second choice your still comparing technology around 300-400 years apart, why don't we compare modern days tanks to lets say ... Cavalry of the 1600's? I wonder why the tanks would win?

Also what type of crossbows are youu talking about?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85CcSgnDgPo

Its a pretty powerful crossbow and considering your not wearing much anywhere as musket infantry I think the 3k crossbowmen would decimate the musketmen, the crossbow firing at 4 bolts a minute ... the muskets around 2-3, the crossbow could probably happily fire at 100m it dosn't need to be accurate, volume of fire would work well, the musket needing to get to around 60-80m to actually be accurate and due to discipline it'd be a horrible slog to walk those 20-40 meters.

Now the problem is that people think the further back you go the worse the weaponry ... problem is a weapon is still a weapon and without that armour to defend you it will kill you the same way it used to.

Do you understand that armour played a very important part in destroying the use of bow and crossbows ... without it the crossbow and longbow beat the musket hands down, yep you'd have the bayonete but really ... a longbowman would never get into that situation before you got to him ... and a sturdy peice of wood clubbing you over the head would do the trick.

[Greentiny]

The point has been touched on in this thread before but I will just say it nice and proper.

The bayonet was the small addition but as people have said, muskets and that technology was used before bayonets therefore they are not the reason.

Mass production due to the industrial revolution made the choice of this kind of weapon viable.

The MAIN reason is that it allowed nations to field such huge numbers of men and draw up conscripts with practically no training. This is how Napoleon did it and you can see the extent that he took this to in the statistics that there are still more women than men in France due to the amount of men Napoleon used in his military campaign.

If you are wondering why there were lines and so many officers and flags and musicians at the time, this was all to do with morale and discipline. These things were so essential because the armies consisted of raw men that had never seen a battle and were not likely to see another. However their actual experience mattered little if they managed to act as meat shields and get off a couple of volleys before hand. The musket took out the skill basically.

The units were packed so tight and in ranks because otherwise there would have been people running away all the time. Therefore the tight formations surrounded by officers with reserves of cavalry meant that infantry were kept in place and told where to move.

Also this use of a tight formation was important because due to the men having no skill and only being given basic training, most regular infantry did not actually aim with their muskets. The point of being in lines was because they simply aimed their guns directly infront and fired basically a line of musket balls. This is why the British at Waterloo were so effective was because mass volleys (with no aiming) were still used and it was the fact that the British could shoot 3 times a minute rather than 2. This is similar to the Hundred Years War where the French favoured the crossbow and the English favoured the longbow and it turned out the longbow was faster with more range.

But to briefly sum up, the whole idea of the era was to take skill out and mass produce, be it weapons or men.

[hrotha]

Kator, but would an early arquebus be able to pierce armour at anything but very close range, and wouldn't that be the case with contemporary crossbows too?

[tomislawus]

The point has been touched on in this thread before but I will just say it nice and proper.

The bayonet was the small addition but as people have said, muskets and that technology was used before bayonets therefore they are not the reason.

Mass production due to the industrial revolution made the choice of this kind of weapon viable.

The MAIN reason is that it allowed nations to field such huge numbers of men and draw up conscripts with practically no training. This is how Napoleon did it and you can see the extent that he took this to in the statistics that there are still more women than men in France due to the amount of men Napoleon used in his military campaign.

If you are wondering why there were lines and so many officers and flags and musicians at the time, this was all to do with morale and discipline. These things were so essential because the armies consisted of raw men that had never seen a battle and were not likely to see another. However their actual experience mattered little if they managed to act as meat shields and get off a couple of volleys before hand. The musket took out the skill basically.

The units were packed so tight and in ranks because otherwise there would have been people running away all the time. Therefore the tight formations surrounded by officers with reserves of cavalry meant that infantry were kept in place and told where to move.

Also this use of a tight formation was important because due to the men having no skill and only being given basic training, most regular infantry did not actually aim with their muskets. The point of being in lines was because they simply aimed their guns directly infront and fired basically a line of musket balls. This is why the British at Waterloo were so effective was because mass volleys (with no aiming) were still used and it was the fact that the British could shoot 3 times a minute rather than 2. This is similar to the Hundred Years War where the French favoured the crossbow and the English favoured the longbow and it turned out the longbow was faster with more range.

But to briefly sum up, the whole idea of the era was to take skill out and mass produce, be it weapons or men.

Its a failed logic - if infantry was tightly packed because of morale factor then all you would have to do is field 300 professional light infantry men in skirmish formation and destroy in a fire fight the other 1000 of tightly packed conscripts.

Soldiers were packed in tight formations because of the fact that the mass infantry formation can simply charge your dispersed light infantry and mow them with bayonets. Even if the numbers are equal. Two 1000 men units of infantry - one in line formation and the other in skirmish formations - are fighting with each other at range. Obviously the light infantry will prevail because of them taking cover and not being concentrated, but if the infantry in formation start to advance they will destroy the light infantry in melee. Its simple as that - light infantry won't be able to fire enough shots and when it comes to melee there will be 1 light infantryman (as the other guy is 5 meters away taking cover somewhere else) against a wall of bayonets and he will always lose.

The same applies to cavalry - it was even a greater threat to light infantry out-of-formation. Dispersed infantry can't deal with cavalry charge (not like in NW anyway - people just stand their ground and lolspamm bayonets) in real life.

[IndiaQuinn]

I'm going to state again ...

ARMOUR was the reason for the Longbow and crossbow coming out of use, not its cost, because training someone to make blackpowder yet alone getting black powder through the "Cake" and "baking" techniques cost more than an archer per day ... let alone the cost to train someone to use the blackpowder and the costs of weapons and armours for them.

An Archer was your trained peasantry, sometimes even a well paid peasant who could ride a horse and had his own. During the time blackpowder was VERY VERY VERY expensive but compared to bows it was creaping ahead in the arms race. Now when the bow started to go out of business around the 1500-1600's the matchlock had arrived, now the matchlocks still cost more than an archer, way more due to them having to be mercenaries ... Charles V Emporer of the Holy Roman empire took an interest into arbequeses but guess what ... he had more crossbows and archers in his ranks ... why? because they were cheaper.

Now we have distinguished that the cost of blackpowder was significantly more than the bow we can start to explain why it went out (Which as i've been explaining before if you read):

Armour

Armour had come a long way, by the 1500's armour completely encased a man in plate armour, resulting in:

(click to show/hide)

The spread of the lombardian and italian plate meant that the bow had to keep up, but it couldn't, it had reached its maximum weight pulled of 150-200 pounds and was no longer piercing armour, so it came down to survival of nations, upgrade and pay more or die out ... Arbequeses and matchlocks then became more popular, hence to the evolution of matchlocks and finally muskets.

If armour had not evolved into the lombardian hardened plate ... well there would be no muskets.

In conclusion, Armour killed the longbow ... not money, technology or the far fetched idea of muskets.

Interesting and to a large extend I can agree. But....
As I said it is not one factor. This is evolution. And only looking at armor would not be right. Technology evolved, but so did the concept of war and nations. And along with it strategy and the idea of the soldier.

Even at Agincourt the arrows of the English longbow men did not pierce the armor of French knights. This has been proven many times in simulations today. The French could have easily beaten the English had they not fought on the terms of the English. The commander of the French was not of noble birth and was not taken seriously by the eager French knights. Had they not charged  and waited or surrounded the English, who were sick and hungry, with their supply lines cut. Henry would have lost his head. So arrows did not kill the French. It was the French eagerness and arrogance that made them fail. They stormed over a muddy field into a bottleneck. While the horse were shot the knights were trembled by their own men. The longbow men did most of the killing, but not with their arrows but with their knives. Killing French knights who could not get up in the mud due to their heavy armor. (actually most knights were executed after the battle...).

Armor was always ahead and stronger over the arrow. But at one point armor just became a burden. Though the archer played a major role, it was the combination of new infantry tactics and strategy that made the knight obsolete. You also have to take the social changes into account. At Agincourt it was clear that a simple farmer could kill a noble. A reality almost unbearible for the nobility (Knights tended not to kill eachother but take captives for ransom). The English were very pragmatic when it came to winning. They had not eye for the etiquette that came with chivalry.

So armor had its limits too. The cost of armor was incredibly expensive.
When it comes to cost, it is not only the cost of armor. The cost of losing a knight (a landlord and important pillar in a feodal system) was simply too high. With populations increasing and states being formed the role of the knight became less important.

Now armor served another role than dogging arrows. It was used for melee.
Melee evolved too. Battle evolved from big blobs to dense organized formations of cheap men with cheap training. Pikes were often not used as anticav but also as a phalanx in melee. Some armor protection is handy when in melee... (but again if you have cheap soldiers and a lot of them, why sacrifice mobility for protection?).
I agree that armor played a role. Gunpowder was the nail on the coffin.

Again. Even with the arquebuses the tactics changed. Where the Spanish used there tercios, Maurits introduced the Anglo-Dutch firing line. A concept that could bring a continues rain of fire on the enemy and needed less pikes for protection. It blew most (armored) tercios away.

Finally on cost of arrows. Soldiers could easily melt their own bullets, where as making an arrow was a very special skil and something you do in a workshop. Any idea how much space a good stack of arrows for one soldier takes up? True blackbowder (chemistry) is a very specialised skil. But in bigger volumes the cost would decrease dramitically. This can not be said for arrows. That remains handycraft.

So yes I agree that is was the 'technology' race. And armor played a major role. But in warfare everything comes down to cost.
Losing an expensive armored guy (who trained whole his live to be a living tank) due to a cheap infantry man (even with an expensive gun, who got 2 days of training) is also a matter of cost.

PS: I normally tend not to go for wikipedia but this is interesting: 

(click to show/hide)

The arquebus compared to archery

The arquebus was unable to match the accuracy of a bow in the hands of a highly-skilled archer. The arquebus did, however, have a faster rate of fire than the most powerful crossbow, a shorter learning curve than a longbow, and was more powerful than either. The arquebus does not rely on the physical strength of the user for propulsion of the projectile. This makes it easier to find a suitable recruit. It also means that an arquebusier loses less of his battlefield effectiveness than an archer or crossbowman when he loses strength due to fatigue, malnutrition or sickness. The arquebusier also had the added advantage of frightening enemies (and horses) with the noise. Wind can reduce the accuracy of archery, but has much less of an effect on an arquebus. Perhaps most important, producing an effective arquebusier required much less training than producing an effective bowman. During a siege it was also easier to fire an arquebus out of loopholes than it was a bow and arrow. It was also possible to load an arquebus (and indeed any smoothbore gun) with small shot rather than a single ball. Small shot did not pack the same punch as a single round ball but the shot could hit and wound multiple enemies.
The arquebus required a much lower level of skill than the typical archer. Most archers spend their whole lives training to fire with accuracy, but with drill and instruction, the arquebusier was able to learn his profession in months as opposed to years. This low level of skill made it a lot easier to outfit an army of them in a short amount of time as well as expand the small arms ranks as the technology and tactics made them more viable in combat. This idea of lower skilled, lightly armoured units was the driving force in the infantry revolution that took place in the 16th and 17th centuries and allowed early modern infantries to phase out the longbow.[14]
An arquebusier could carry more ammunition and powder than a crossbowman or longbowman could with bolts or arrows. Once the methods were developed, powder and shot were relatively easy to mass-produce, while arrow making was a genuine craft requiring highly skilled labor.

The arquebus was more sensitive to humid weather. At the Battle of Villalar, rebel troops lost the battle badly partially due to having a high proportion of arquebusiers combined with the battle taking place in a rainstorm which rendered the weapons nigh-useless.[15] Gunpowder also ages much faster than a bolt or an arrow, particularly if improperly stored. Also, the resources needed to make gunpowder were less universally available than the resources needed to make bolts and arrows. Bows do not really consume anything the way an arquebus consumes gunpowder. Finding and reusing arrows or bolts was a lot easier than doing the same with arquebus bullets. This was a useful way to reduce the cost of practice, or resupply oneself if control of the battlefield after a battle was retained. A bullet must fit a barrel much more precisely than an arrow or bolt must fit a bow, so the arquebus required more standardization and made it harder to resupply by looting bodies of fallen soldiers. Gunpowder production was also far more dangerous than arrow production.
An arquebus was also significantly more dangerous to its user. The arquebusier carries a lot of gunpowder on his person and has a lit match in one hand. The same goes for the soldiers next to him. Amid the confusion, stress and fumbling of a battle, arquebusiers are potentially a danger to themselves. Early arquebuses tended to have a drastic recoil. They took a long time to load making them vulnerable while reloading unless using the 'continuous fire' tactic, where one line would shoot and, while the next line shot, would reload. They also tended to overheat. During repeated firing, guns could become clogged and explode, causing pieces of metal and wood to break off, which could be dangerous to the gunner and even those around him. In this context it should be added that reloading an arquebus requires more fine motor skills and movements than reloading a bow or crossbow. This is a disadvantage in a combat situation since stress has a very negative impact on fine motor skills.

Furthermore, the amount of smoke produced by black powder weapons was considerable, making it hard to see the enemy after a few salvos, unless there was enough wind to disperse the smoke quickly. (Conversely, this cloud of smoke also served to make it difficult for any archers to target the opposing soldiers that were using handguns). Prior to the wheellock, the need for a lit match made stealth and concealment nearly impossible, particularly at night. Even with successful concealment, the smoke emitted by a single arquebus shot would make it quite obvious where a shot came from – at least in daylight. While with a crossbow or bow a soldier could conceivably kill silently, this was of course impossible with an explosion-driven projectile weapon like the arquebus. The noise of arquebuses and the ringing in the ears that it caused could also make it hard to hear shouted commands. In the long run, the weapon could make the user permanently hard of hearing. Bows and crossbows could shoot over obstacles by firing with high-arcing ballistic trajectories in order to reach the enemy when the person or object had some frontal but no overhead cover (such as when troops are in melee with the enemy) — albeit with much less accuracy.

[berserkergang]

scenario 1(pre bayonet Muskets)
I would think another simple reason to use musket men(with pikemen who usually wore armour, there would also be halberdier men and guys armed with Flamberges to chop of pike tips in melee if it came to that.) vs bowmen( with pike men ) the bows would not do much damage to pikemen.

scenario 2(Bayonet Muskets)
Two if two armies of equal number were to fight. 1 musket men with bayonets lets say 5000 vs 3000 crossbowmen and 2000 pike men. The Second army has reduced fire power due to having to equip some of its men with pikes. Also because the bowmen would have to group together with the pikemen it would create a massive target for artillery which by Napoleonic times was a lot more accurate than in the past. Thirdly Distance of an enemy is more important with a bow or crossbow and with smoke obscuring the field bows would suffer from less accuracy were muskets could pointed in the general direction of the enemy and would score hits as long as they were in operational distance. Muskets were so deadly by this point battles were often decide by shooting alone so pike men would have no other role than to prevent enemy cavalry from charging and would be shot to pieces, not to forget cavalry had there own guns as well with which they could now kill the pikemen with rather than risking melee.

O.o

Have you seen the armour on pikemen? especially in the 1600's, its practically well ... cloth, perfect targets for bow.

Also one your second choice your still comparing technology around 300-400 years apart, why don't we compare modern days tanks to lets say ... Cavalry of the 1600's? I wonder why the tanks would win?

Also what type of crossbows are youu talking about?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85CcSgnDgPo

Its a pretty powerful crossbow and considering your not wearing much anywhere as musket infantry I think the 3k crossbowmen would decimate the musketmen, the crossbow firing at 4 bolts a minute ... the muskets around 2-3, the crossbow could probably happily fire at 100m it dosn't need to be accurate, volume of fire would work well, the musket needing to get to around 60-80m to actually be accurate and due to discipline it'd be a horrible slog to walk those 20-40 meters.

Now the problem is that people think the further back you go the worse the weaponry ... problem is a weapon is still a weapon and without that armour to defend you it will kill you the same way it used to.

Do you understand that armour played a very important part in destroying the use of bow and crossbows ... without it the crossbow and longbow beat the musket hands down, yep you'd have the bayonete but really ... a longbowman would never get into that situation before you got to him ... and a sturdy peice of wood clubbing you over the head would do the trick.

Firstly the original topic is why didn't they field mass armies of bowmen/crossbowmen in the 18th century so comparing bayoneted muskets from the 18th an early 19th century is completely relevant in order to answer the question.

And well pikemen in the 1600s did have armour. Pikemen 1500 to 1550 would wear cloth and a breastplate for the lucky ones but by the middle of the century many states kept and maintained arsenals of arms and armour to equip state levied armies. Armour only increased in quality towards the 1600s

Helmets (when worn) covered more of the head and can include visors and falling buffs. This is a continuing trend towards a full burgonet style helmet. A lot of these helmets had very large brims and a rounded skull with a small or no crest. The terminal ends of the brim would curl around like rams horns and some were hinged like a visor. Some helmets had a short spike on the top and were onion shaped. The spike was usually topped with a decorative ball with plumage coming out of it.

The breastplate at the start of this period is of the globose style that loses the Maximillian fluting and the decoration becomes plainer. At about 1540 the distinctive pigeon point and the curving embossed panel on the upper edge of the breast that is so typical of the later black and white style starts to develop.

The ever-present mail standard is just as popular and evident as in the previous two periods. The style and construction of the standard is the same as well. Plate gorgets (neck protection) are shown in woodcuts and seem to be worn with Harnisch more often.

When armour to protect the arms was worn, they would sometimes enclose the entire arm instead of the splinted type from the earlier periods. Arm vambraces were still, by and large, very rare and would have been worn by veteran (doppel) soldiers who had the money to purchase them.

Hear are links to images of 1600s and 1700s pikemen
http://s277.photobucket.com/albums/kk50/Dstaberg/Armour%20pics/16th%20Century%20armour/?action=view&current=Swisspikemen.jpg&sort=ascending

http://warandgame.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/infantry165455.jpg

http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-16.htm

The English Civil War (1642–1651) pikemen wore breast plate hear too.

[Greentiny]

(click to show/hide)

The point has been touched on in this thread before but I will just say it nice and proper.

The bayonet was the small addition but as people have said, muskets and that technology was used before bayonets therefore they are not the reason.

Mass production due to the industrial revolution made the choice of this kind of weapon viable.

The MAIN reason is that it allowed nations to field such huge numbers of men and draw up conscripts with practically no training. This is how Napoleon did it and you can see the extent that he took this to in the statistics that there are still more women than men in France due to the amount of men Napoleon used in his military campaign.

If you are wondering why there were lines and so many officers and flags and musicians at the time, this was all to do with morale and discipline. These things were so essential because the armies consisted of raw men that had never seen a battle and were not likely to see another. However their actual experience mattered little if they managed to act as meat shields and get off a couple of volleys before hand. The musket took out the skill basically.

The units were packed so tight and in ranks because otherwise there would have been people running away all the time. Therefore the tight formations surrounded by officers with reserves of cavalry meant that infantry were kept in place and told where to move.

Also this use of a tight formation was important because due to the men having no skill and only being given basic training, most regular infantry did not actually aim with their muskets. The point of being in lines was because they simply aimed their guns directly infront and fired basically a line of musket balls. This is why the British at Waterloo were so effective was because mass volleys (with no aiming) were still used and it was the fact that the British could shoot 3 times a minute rather than 2. This is similar to the Hundred Years War where the French favoured the crossbow and the English favoured the longbow and it turned out the longbow was faster with more range.

But to briefly sum up, the whole idea of the era was to take skill out and mass produce, be it weapons or men.

Its a failed logic - if infantry was tightly packed because of morale factor then all you would have to do is field 300 professional light infantry men in skirmish formation and destroy in a fire fight the other 1000 of tightly packed conscripts.

Soldiers were packed in tight formations because of the fact that the mass infantry formation can simply charge your dispersed light infantry and mow them with bayonets. Even if the numbers are equal. Two 1000 men units of infantry - one in line formation and the other in skirmish formations - are fighting with each other at range. Obviously the light infantry will prevail because of them taking cover and not being concentrated, but if the infantry in formation start to advance they will destroy the light infantry in melee. Its simple as that - light infantry won't be able to fire enough shots and when it comes to melee there will be 1 light infantryman (as the other guy is 5 meters away taking cover somewhere else) against a wall of bayonets and he will always lose.

The same applies to cavalry - it was even a greater threat to light infantry out-of-formation. Dispersed infantry can't deal with cavalry charge (not like in NW anyway - people just stand their ground and lolspamm bayonets) in real life.

It's not failed logic it is the truth...

Yes you could get 300 elite men but the chances are that they would be shot and the training would be wasted.
Morale played a big part in battles throughout history that is not simulated in games, even elite troops have morale.
Riflemen were essentially elite troops and could shoot down a lot of regular line infantry however there was not an equivalent ratio of riflemen:line because rifles were more expensive and complex to manufacture and then the men were in short supply because they were good shots who usually had some kind of experience in the army or social life.
And as I said before, the reason they were tightly packed and not spread out was so that officers had better control over the unit. Obviously a spread out line is more difficult to hit but, if you did this with regular soldiers then they would desert and be extremely difficult to maneuver.

Also the bayonet charge was pretty much an attack on morale. There are very few instances where units were fighting hand to hand with bayonets for extended periods of time because it was a routing charge. It was not a melee brawl. If you think about it, charging a volley is not going to be to your advantage, therefore the only reason to do it is to break morale as few men continued their volleys whilst hordes of enemies with fixed bayonets came at them, be it at a run or marching.

I hope I have thoroughly explained the 'failed logic' of this Era of warfare.

[Kator Viridian]

(click to show/hide)

scenario 1(pre bayonet Muskets)
I would think another simple reason to use musket men(with pikemen who usually wore armour, there would also be halberdier men and guys armed with Flamberges to chop of pike tips in melee if it came to that.) vs bowmen( with pike men ) the bows would not do much damage to pikemen.

scenario 2(Bayonet Muskets)
Two if two armies of equal number were to fight. 1 musket men with bayonets lets say 5000 vs 3000 crossbowmen and 2000 pike men. The Second army has reduced fire power due to having to equip some of its men with pikes. Also because the bowmen would have to group together with the pikemen it would create a massive target for artillery which by Napoleonic times was a lot more accurate than in the past. Thirdly Distance of an enemy is more important with a bow or crossbow and with smoke obscuring the field bows would suffer from less accuracy were muskets could pointed in the general direction of the enemy and would score hits as long as they were in operational distance. Muskets were so deadly by this point battles were often decide by shooting alone so pike men would have no other role than to prevent enemy cavalry from charging and would be shot to pieces, not to forget cavalry had there own guns as well with which they could now kill the pikemen with rather than risking melee.

O.o

Have you seen the armour on pikemen? especially in the 1600's, its practically well ... cloth, perfect targets for bow.

Also one your second choice your still comparing technology around 300-400 years apart, why don't we compare modern days tanks to lets say ... Cavalry of the 1600's? I wonder why the tanks would win?

Also what type of crossbows are youu talking about?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85CcSgnDgPo

Its a pretty powerful crossbow and considering your not wearing much anywhere as musket infantry I think the 3k crossbowmen would decimate the musketmen, the crossbow firing at 4 bolts a minute ... the muskets around 2-3, the crossbow could probably happily fire at 100m it dosn't need to be accurate, volume of fire would work well, the musket needing to get to around 60-80m to actually be accurate and due to discipline it'd be a horrible slog to walk those 20-40 meters.

Now the problem is that people think the further back you go the worse the weaponry ... problem is a weapon is still a weapon and without that armour to defend you it will kill you the same way it used to.

Do you understand that armour played a very important part in destroying the use of bow and crossbows ... without it the crossbow and longbow beat the musket hands down, yep you'd have the bayonete but really ... a longbowman would never get into that situation before you got to him ... and a sturdy peice of wood clubbing you over the head would do the trick.

Firstly the original topic is why didn't they field mass armies of bowmen/crossbowmen in the 18th century so comparing bayoneted muskets from the 18th an early 19th century is completely relevant in order to answer the question.

And well pikemen in the 1600s did have armour. Pikemen 1500 to 1550 would wear cloth and a breastplate for the lucky ones but by the middle of the century many states kept and maintained arsenals of arms and armour to equip state levied armies. Armour only increased in quality towards the 1600s

Helmets (when worn) covered more of the head and can include visors and falling buffs. This is a continuing trend towards a full burgonet style helmet. A lot of these helmets had very large brims and a rounded skull with a small or no crest. The terminal ends of the brim would curl around like rams horns and some were hinged like a visor. Some helmets had a short spike on the top and were onion shaped. The spike was usually topped with a decorative ball with plumage coming out of it.

The breastplate at the start of this period is of the globose style that loses the Maximillian fluting and the decoration becomes plainer. At about 1540 the distinctive pigeon point and the curving embossed panel on the upper edge of the breast that is so typical of the later black and white style starts to develop.

The ever-present mail standard is just as popular and evident as in the previous two periods. The style and construction of the standard is the same as well. Plate gorgets (neck protection) are shown in woodcuts and seem to be worn with Harnisch more often.

When armour to protect the arms was worn, they would sometimes enclose the entire arm instead of the splinted type from the earlier periods. Arm vambraces were still, by and large, very rare and would have been worn by veteran (doppel) soldiers who had the money to purchase them.

Hear are links to images of 1600s and 1700s pikemen
http://s277.photobucket.com/albums/kk50/Dstaberg/Armour%20pics/16th%20Century%20armour/?action=view&current=Swisspikemen.jpg&sort=ascending

http://warandgame.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/infantry165455.jpg

http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-16.htm

The English Civil War (1642–1651) pikemen wore breast plate hear too.

I have some major issues with this, your armour facts fine ... your period facts ... bleh.

During teh 1600-1700's the bow was out, it had been out of warfare in england since around the 1550's, armour was now mainly worn to stop sword cuts or thrusts, which were carried by a large majority of the pikemen and you can see that in clashes with the swiss and bluecoats in the English Civil war.

Also note crossbowmen in the 1700's did not exist anymore, so your comparing earliers peices when it was at its prime with the longbow around the 1300's-1400's before armour was catching up with it. And the longbow and crossbow were deadly its why the french feared the longbow so much during the 100 years war and often lost to it. When armour caught up in the 1450's the long bow was less and less feared thanks to the new lombardian plate that was swiftly adopted across Europe as the new standard of steel and hardending ... next came armour peircing hand weapons. The Armour was lessened once a new thread came into play, the matchlock, now to beat matchlock infantry you need more speed, so ditching the armour that was already being peirced so easily made sense ... which is why armour decreased throughout the 1600's to the 1700's and eventually we end up with the 1900's when armour is almost completely ditched.

Fast forwarding to modern day body armour has started to come back into play, the kevlar vests and various other types of body armours to ward off shots, much like the medieval knights and hardened steel plate against the bow and crossbow ... it will eventually evolve into something raygun like where body armour counts for nothing in the far or short future.

Its the general evolution of armour and weapons ... "The Arms Race".

I'd also suggest looking at the battle of verneuil and you'll see the difference from Agincourt and what the lombardian plate armour actually did ... its quite catastrophic for the English on this sudden realisation their best weapon is useless against that type of plate.

Also around the 1450-70's the war of the roses kicks up a storm and strangly enough there are less crossbows and bowmen, and a lot more "Handgonnes", which I found strange myself but i'd put it down to the quality of armour and what kind of effect it was really starting to have on Europe, eventually leading to the bows depletion by the 1550's.

Although the longbow was used by one man in particular and Projects personal favourite:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill

The crazy man wielding a Scottish Broard and Longbow on a Motorbike.

Interesting and to a large extend I can agree. But....
As I said it is not one factor. This is evolution. And only looking at armor would not be right. Technology evolved, but so did the concept of war and nations. And along with it strategy and the idea of the soldier.

Even at Agincourt the arrows of the English longbow men did not pierce the armor of French knights. This has been proven many times in simulations today. The French could have easily beaten the English had they not fought on the terms of the English. The commander of the French was not of noble birth and was not taken seriously by the eager French knights. Had they not charged  and waited or surrounded the English, who were sick and hungry, with their supply lines cut. Henry would have lost his head. So arrows did not kill the French. It was the French eagerness and arrogance that made them fail. They stormed over a muddy field into a bottleneck. While the horse were shot the knights were trembled by their own men. The longbow men did most of the killing, but not with their arrows but with their knives. Killing French knights who could not get up in the mud due to their heavy armor. (actually most knights were executed after the battle...).

Armor was always ahead and stronger over the arrow. But at one point armor just became a burden. Though the archer played a major role, it was the combination of new infantry tactics and strategy that made the knight obsolete. You also have to take the social changes into account. At Agincourt it was clear that a simple farmer could kill a noble. A reality almost unbearible for the nobility (Knights tended not to kill eachother but take captives for ransom). The English were very pragmatic when it came to winning. They had not eye for the etiquette that came with chivalry.

So armor had its limits too. The cost of armor was incredibly expensive.
When it comes to cost, it is not only the cost of armor. The cost of losing a knight (a landlord and important pillar in a feodal system) was simply too high. With populations increasing and states being formed the role of the knight became less important.

Now armor served another role than dogging arrows. It was used for melee.
Melee evolved too. Battle evolved from big blobs to dense organized formations of cheap men with cheap training. Pikes were often not used as anticav but also as a phalanx in melee. Some armor protection is handy when in melee... (but again if you have cheap soldiers and a lot of them, why sacrifice mobility for protection?).
I agree that armor played a role. Gunpowder was the nail on the coffin.

Again. Even with the arquebuses the tactics changed. Where the Spanish used there tercios, Maurits introduced the Anglo-Dutch firing line. A concept that could bring a continues rain of fire on the enemy and needed less pikes for protection. It blew most (armored) tercios away.

Finally on cost of arrows. Soldiers could easily melt their own bullets, where as making an arrow was a very special skil and something you do in a workshop. Any idea how much space a good stack of arrows for one soldier takes up? True blackbowder (chemistry) is a very specialised skil. But in bigger volumes the cost would decrease dramitically. This can not be said for arrows. That remains handycraft.

So yes I agree that is was the 'technology' race. And armor played a major role. But in warfare everything comes down to cost.
Losing an expensive armored guy (who trained whole his live to be a living tank) due to a cheap infantry man (even with an expensive gun, who got 2 days of training) is also a matter of cost.

[/spoiler]

Right the French had always known the power of the Longbow since the battle of Crecy in 1346 near 60 years before Agincourt so that was not the issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy

Now the problem is is that Agincourt is a source of pretty bad lies, people seem to think that the French assault was halted ... it wasn't it almost broke entirely through the English lines completely, the main french loss was flanking fire from archers due to the corridor they were pushed into that caused the route and total annhilation.

Now another myth is that armour is very very heavy and falling off your horse means your dead ... observe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMuNXWFPewg

Also note the mud stuck to his breastplate, that is "Mud" but you don't get a look at the thickness of it, a main issue with saying "Mud", now to slow you down it needs to be atleast ancle deep to slow down infantry to a crawl, for horses ... its needs to be much thicker which would mean the infantry would never make it to the front line ... so really the mud was not an issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kKLgSTkCEo - Not the right style but you get the point about weight being spread.

Yes I agree though the loss of nobility was a problem but nobility as the cavalry did change by the 1500's with "Men at Arms" being suplimented in, getting paid half as much as a knight, receiving the same sort of training but coming from a lot lower down circumstances, probably people the knight trusted or children of the knights trusties, trained to fight along side them ... but worth nothing in terms of ransom.

About bullets, if you look in the standards of the Archers prime of the 1400's getting hold of an arrow was not very expensive at all, it was actually a lot easier when on campaign, but getting hold of lead to melt was a lot harder and more expensive ... afterall you had to pay for your own equiptment. For the 1700-1800's though this was not a problem, you had your equiptment paid for and produced for you, there would be a wealth of lead ready to be melted down and changed into what you needed it for, ships were stocked to the bring with piles of lead for musket balls to on ship repairs.

There is a massive difference between the standard man of the 1400's to the 1700-1800's. Money was probably never actually seen by the common man in the 1400's ... the literal sense of a coin probably never existed to them at all, except with riches of their lords, they handed over their crops as rent pay which was sold by your lord ... the standard feudal system. In the 1700-1800's traders had taken over along with the idea that everyone was in a sense 'free' after the English civil war where people with little background could make it big.

The differences from social lives to income need to be taken into account ... and if they arn't then your missing a lot of the truth.

True musket balls would be easy to manufacture in the 1400's ... but lead was no-where near as readily or easy to get hold of and damned expensive competeing with the church for it. But after Monastical and trading reforms up to the 1650's lead itself and trading goods in general for gunpowder became easier to get hold of, let alone the industrial revolution in the 1750's.

Hope this is all making sense now.