First, about avaliability of the bows. For a bandit, it is one of the most useful tools! It allows him to disable the victim out of an ambush, it gives him a chance against a skilled fighter who does not happen to wear good armor. It allows him to kill the victim before she rides away on the horse.
As for production: A skilled person (who has been making bows all his life) can produce mediocre-quality bows quite quickly and will sell them at a reasonable price. Loot from a raid would be enough to buy a bow and arrows.
As for "wasting" time for training: bandits survival depends on use of his weapons! that is like saying "US soldiers waste too much time on combat training! They could be drinking beer all that time!" Having a sword isnot sufficient!
catsoup said:
Archers were professionals- Horse archers elite.
Archers in Europe were poorly trained peasants who were whipped to the battlefiield after a couple of weeks of training, who had performed like crap and who had been used like cannon fodder anyway. British longbowmen were an exception.
Bow would not earn too much for a mercenary and was not required from a noble (except for Britain).
catsoup said:
Robbers usually have to get on with merchants and other folks rather then fully armored knights
Arrows are way more effective against non-armored targets! Against an armored knight on an armored warhorse a shortbow would be useless - hence a bandit would not attack.
catsoup said:
having a sword and a horse would be fairly enough to do robbery.
No for 3 reasons:
1: When a bandit charges a target, trying to kill it with a sword, the target is likely to ride away. Since the horses avaliable to bandits are what they steal from farms, they are unlikely to wit the chase.
2: If a fight ensies, the robber can get killed if the target is a skilled fighter - which is more than possible. And bandits do not want to die! In fact, jigits would not like to die either
3: It is much easier for a bandit to afford a bow than to afford a horse and a steel sword.
catsoup said:
It would be strange as their main clichée job was to ambush people on roads, not to hunt caravans like their eastern counterparts.
Their job is to get the loot, whenever it comes from. If the caravan was poorly guarded or weakened in a previous engagement, the bandits might decide to take their chances.
catsoup said:
Besides horses just dont fit to mountain bands if they arent, as you pointed out, peoples living between the black and caspian seas. Lawrence of Arabia has found a good point here. They just dont fit. We have a good steppe/desert for bandit riders.
I agree that forest and mountain bandits have too many HORSEMEN, but not too many ARCHERS. just give them less horses (who were hard to maintain indeed).
As a footman, you can get them with ranged weapons.Their accuracy is so bad that you will get them down without too much problem. Just remember to have that shield.
If they charge in meele, you have a bunch of followers around you.
If you are alone on foot, you are just asking for trouble: there is a reason why people did not travel alone on foot in middle ages! The best knight on foot could be killed by a couple of bandits with horses: Just shoot him with arrows, throw stones at him till he falls down exhausted and then do anything your sick mind wants.
In any case, khregits are still MUCH better horse archers! They shoot accurately and ride faster.