Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

Post by ucaetano » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

wwwong wrote: post #90

ucaetano wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to compare Mongols to Europeans. The composite bows rely on animal-based adhesives, which are great in cold and dry climates, but fall apart in humid and warmer climates. Also, light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe, specially when you don't have huge, flat battlefields that allow light cavalry to circle any target. In other words, Mongol wa…

Re: "light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe" Not true, as the Chinese cities at the time were much more fortified than Europe. The Mongols were able to plunder the surrounding lands. Also, despite Europe's fortifications, a scouting party led by Subutai of 20,000 horse archers, widely wiped out a much more significant force of Central Europe soldiers,…

Post by yborg » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

thearn4 wrote: post #83

matwood wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the art of dogfighting was deemed to have been lost for a brief period between WWII and the air war over Vietnam, and had to be re-engineered. That's the premise laid out at the start of the Top Gun movie. That the Top Gun school was created to bring back the art of dogfighting.

As an aside, I have wondered how universally true this was. For instance, did the USAF recognize a similar issue during this period?

Post by lifeisstillgood » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

noir-york wrote: post #40

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Sharpe author Bernard Cornwell wrote a couple of novels set in / around Agincourt and from memory there are a few extras to throw in - but I love your last sentence's conclusion 1. The extra training was enormous - thik of an army of a thousand Arnold Schwarzeneggers - these guys cold deliver hundreds of foot pounds from their arms. Robin Hood would have been built like The Rock, not Kevin Costner. 2. The "cheap"…

> finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster But the army you raise is less effective; quantity vs quality. A country which did not want or could not afford to train longbow men may have had a deeper flaw: its model. Perhaps the real reason England could beat France had been a long time in the making: a strong economy, and political…

Post by Agathos » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #67

Agathos wrote: post #58

It's nice to see the conventional wisdom confirmed for once, but... isn't this the conventional wisdom?

Is it? I always thought crossbows were way more effective than longbows at range and accuracy.

Post by vkazanov » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 3:39 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #81

vkazanov wrote: post #48

Interesting. Although this point of view might be a bit simplified, there's another example of a weapon, which was both relatively cheap to make - and really hard to use unless the whole society was built around the skills required to use it. Mongols! Light cavalry using composite bows was both unbelievably effective and hard to copy for everybody but steppe nomads. All Mongols were hunters, they practically lived wi…

It's hard to compare Mongols to Europeans. The composite bows rely on animal-based adhesives, which are great in cold and dry climates, but fall apart in humid and warmer climates. Also, light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe, specially when you don't have huge, flat battlefields that allow light cavalry to circle any target. In other words, Mongol wa…