Plate armor cartwheels.

Sorry for misinterpreting, Damien. The internet's eternal curse.

I've just, like Merentha, been reading too many (american-spawned) comments denigrating French military history that it gets my hackles up. (though I am not French.)

I suspect most Americans hate any country they can't spell, which is typically any country who's name is longer than 3 letters.

USA, USA, USA!

Now, let's not go from one extreme to the other...


Amman: well, yes firearms are easy to use. But they actually require more training than crossbows, and while the latter do require physical strength, that never really was an issue. I've never heard of an army having more crossbows than men strong enough to use them. Compared to the crossbow, the arquebus' main advantages were lower costs and the sound-and-light effects, plus a higher rate of fire; the main con was of course the horrendous accuracy.

But in the later stages of the Hundred Years War, the French were not really relying on guerilla tactics. After the Siege of Orléans, or more exactly the assault on the Tourelles, they were almost constantly on the offensive, and only a few months after the relief of Orléans won a pitched battle at Patay. Patay proved how completely the English were dependant on terrain for their victories; the French tactics were the same as at Crécy or Azincourt, their cavalry was outnumbered by more than three to one because it had advanced rapidly in order to attack as soon as the English position was known and the supporting infantry had been unable to keep up. Yet the French won, because the weapons and tactics of the early fiteenth century did not allow a force composed mainly of footsoldiers to resist a heavy cavalry assault on open terrain. Had the forces present at Crécy and Azincourt met in the firm, flat fields near Patay then the English would have been defeated.

The greatest chnage in French military forces in the latter part of the war was not in tactics or armament (although advances in plate armour did reduce the effectiveness or archery against them) but in the creation of the first permanent standing army in Western Europe since Roman times, by the royal ordinances of the 1430s and 1440s. This allowed armies of disciplined, professional soldiers to respond very rapidly to English raids or offensives.

Regarding firearms, if I recall correctly the first fighting manuals commissioned by Maurice of Nassau had something like 20 different steps a soldier had to go through to reload and fire his musket. (all explained through illustrations, since many soldiers would be illiterate.)

Cirdan beat me to it but I was going to point out that the French defeated the English in a number of pitched battles in the last 3 decades of the 100 years war.

Not only did the French beat the English at Patay, but also at Bauge in 1421, Formigny in 1450 and finally Castillon in 1453.

During the Wars of the Roses English archers were neutralised by the fact that they were used by both sides. The battles were decided by men-at-arms in full plate armour fighting on foot.  The exception to this was the battle of Bosworth were a cavalry charge did play a major role.

The last battle in which in English archers armed with war bows played a decisive role was Flodden Field in 1513.  Even then the impact of archery was initially ineffective because most of the Scots fighting on foot in the front lines wore full plate armour, the archers caused massive casualties among the highlanders who were lightly armoured. the terrain did the rest as the scottish pike formations were disorganised by charging down a steep and slippery hillside.  This is all from memory so feel feel free to rectify mistakes.

We do seem to have deviated quite a bit from the original point of this thread.

Iguana-on-a-stick said:

Regarding firearms, if I recall correctly the first fighting manuals commissioned by Maurice of Nassau had something like 20 different steps a soldier had to go through to reload and fire his musket. (all explained through illustrations, since many soldiers would be illiterate.)

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Yes, the process was complex--but after being drilled intensively in using your matchlock firearm for several weeks, you'd remember it. It didn't take any specific skill; using a bow (not a crossbow and much less a firearm) requires years of experience in evaluating the distance, your target's movement, the direction of the wind, and general atmospheric conditions, then in estimating the ammount of lead and the ballistic angle required to hit it. Most modern archery competitions occur at ranges much shorter than those at which medieval archers would release their first volley. So, although using the arquebus might be much more complex than using a modern rifle, it was still very easy to use compared to the bow.

Aqtai: well, we're still discussing plate armour and the weapons used against it, with examples based on the course of historical wars and battles during the era in which plate was worn...we can't be that far from topic, can we?

Cirdan said:

. Most modern archery competitions occur at ranges much shorter than those at which medieval archers would release their first volley.

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Yes, but remember that long range archery is not shooting at individual targets, but at a mass of men. Volley fire is an area effect tactic. 80 yards is about the maxium you can expect a skilled archer to hit a single target. At 300 he can hit an army.

Regarding firearms, if I recall correctly the first fighting manuals commissioned by Maurice of Nassau had something like 20 different steps a soldier had to go through to reload and fire his musket. (all explained through illustrations, since many soldiers would be illiterate.)

Click to expand...

Quite true. The crossobw is equally 'complicated.' But when you think about it. . . how many steps could you illustrate for driving a car? It's still easy as pie after you do it once or twice.

Yes. Well.. I would beg to differ on that count. Natural aptitude comes into it a lot, and some people *coughs* are lacking that more than others. (and 60% of people don't fail their driving exams for nothing the first time around)

Still, point well taken.

Compared to the crossbow, the arquebus' main advantages were lower costs and the sound-and-light effects, plus a higher rate of fire; the main con was of course the horrendous accuracy.

Click to expand...

I am curious if anyone happens to have any exact information about the rate of fire of crossbows and early firearms?

For early firearms I seem to recall one shot a minute. But that's a 16th century matchlock, not a 14th century gonne. Don't know about weapons that early.

Haven't a clue about crossbows either, but I imagine it'd vary wildly based on the strength of the crossbow and the loading mechanism.

Iguana-on-a-stick said:

For early firearms I seem to recall one shot a minute. But that's a 16th century matchlock, not a 14th century gonne. Don't know about weapons that early.

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The Flintlock was around 3 shots a minute, but that was a much more advanced weapon.

Well, of course it was the 16th century (or late 15th) arquebus that was replacing the crossbow, not the earlier handgonne, and I'd assume there was a good reason for that. I don't know if it was the rate of fire or the penetrating power of the gonne that was unsatisfactory; the barrels on them seem awfully short, and barrel length is a major factor in a firearm's efficiency.


For the crossbow, the rate of fire varied massively--the rule of thumb being that the more powerful the weapon, the more time it took to reload. The zhuge nu, although it wasn't used in Europe, could discharge its ten-bolt magazine in under fifteen seconds, and would have had a sustained rate of fire of between twenty and thirty bolts a minute. Of course, a zhuge nu was about as weak as any medieval ranged weapon could get; against even lightly armoured targets it didn't have any real killing power (bar a lucky shot through the eye) beyond maybe twenty metres. I'm not sure it would have worried a man in full Milanese even at point blank rnage. Suposedly, the Chinese took to smearing its bolts with poison, because otherwise they often wouldn't penetrate far enough in to make a kill. Besides, it was wildly inaccurate since it was fired from the hip by pumping a lever back and forth, which would probably have imparted a rocking motion to the crossbow.

At the other end of the spectrum, the heavier, metal-bowed crossbows used during sieges to "snipe" at the enemy from very long range were extremely powerful, the windlass mechanism allowing them to make use of more than a tonne of effective draw power. This made them extremely dangerous and quite accurate; at close range they probably could reliably pierce plate. But it would have taken ages of toil (more than a minute, IIRC) to draw the string back, and the weapon itself was quite heavy, so that they usually would be reserved for siege warfare (like the Greek gastraphetes, although it was nowhere near as powerful).

Cirdan said:

Well, of course it was the 16th century (or late 15th) arquebus that was replacing the crossbow, not the earlier handgonne, and I'd assume there was a good reason for that. I don't know if it was the rate of fire or the penetrating power of the gonne that was unsatisfactory; the barrels on them seem awfully short, and barrel length is a major factor in a firearm's efficiency.

Click to expand...

The importance of barrel length is often misunderstood. First, the only use for barrel length is to increase velocity.........however for many years it was thought that barrel length had a direct effect on accurecy. This is not true, but it very much seemed to be true to them, because of how they aimed the weapon.

To be simple, When you are using iron sites, (or just siting down a barrel) the longer the barrel, the better your AIM. The length of the barrel does not change the fundamental accurecy of the weapon, which is demonstated by putting it in a clamp and then seting how large a pattern you have.

As to the sheer power... this varies by propellent. With black powder they eventually found that for a cannon, anything more then about 8 feet wasn't helpful. I cannot say with older small arms. (Though I can go on at length about why US Special Forces are wrong to use 10-14 inch barrels on the M-4 carbine, but that's a modern weapon and not important here. In short, that bullet type really needs to go faster then 10-14 inches will get it, and they are having problems with on-target effect.)

Secondly, the proper musket allowed you to 'more or less' shoulder the weapon, and aim properly, something you didn't see as much of with handgonnes.

The Handgonne was basically a very primative weapon. They also shot arrows out of them. (Or progectiles very much like arrows.)

While this goes into much more detail than my post, I knew it all already (although note, you are being miselading about barrel length and accuracy, since it is easyer to aim a faster bullet as it will suffer less deviation from forces such as gravity, wind, etc--although there is no accuracy gain other than what results from the increased muzzle velocity). The barrel length is the determinant factor for how efficient your firearm will be, as I said; with the very short barrels featured by most handgonnes, you would get a much slower bullet than from an arquebus with the same calibre and powder charge. This is why i suggested that one of the reasons the gonne never became dominant, unlike the arquebus,might have been because it lacked penetrating power.

Bump - Back to plate armour.

Hurry up and finish the world war II mod... LOL sorry...

No, shut up and stay out of this discussion if you have nothing even related to the subforum to discuss.