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

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

#81

Post by ucaetano »

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 warfare was perfect for the environment they were created for: vast empty dry lands with few geographical features and settlements which are far from each other.

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

#82

Post by thesz »

zhte415 wrote: post #30

tl;dr: The abstract does a wonderful job. It is will worth reading. Longbow was cheap and technically superior, but required training. Crossbow more expensive, required less training. Rulers of England less worried about rebellion, OK to invest in training. Rulers of France/Scotland not so happy because of fear to give potential of overthrow to the people (Scotland not in title, but in article along with France). Per…

You forget that there is no citation of any of medieval sources that support their claims. I cannot believe that rulers decide on something important like war technology without leaving history trails in literature.

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

#83

Post by thearn4 »

matwood wrote: post #79
thearn4 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly (and I'm still looking for a better source than this[1]), the Duke Of Wellington had requested a corps of longbowmen be made ready for use against the French in the Napoleonic wars, but was advised that no one with the skill needed to train them still existed (the training being the most difficult part of the technology). The last use of trained english longbowmen seemed to have been by some o…

> 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?

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

#84

Post by rogeryu »

Last summer I did a workshop with the longbow. It's real fun, and has many links to meditation, finding your center etc. I had seen it before, never liked it, but it was great.

In the end I shot at a 1.5 meter target about 100 meters away. You could barely see it, as it was lying flat on a hill. At first I could not believe that I had the power to get that far, but it worked out. I missed it by about 12 meters, which was not bad looking at the competition that day.

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

#85

Post by kiwi93 »

surprised there's no discussion of the importance of chivalric values in the French military. French knights were so married to the idea of valor that employing yeoman infantry was seen as dishonorable. Obviously this is directly related to the political context of state security but it's worth considering the cultural factor as well

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

zhte415 wrote: post #30

tl;dr: The abstract does a wonderful job. It is will worth reading. Longbow was cheap and technically superior, but required training. Crossbow more expensive, required less training. Rulers of England less worried about rebellion, OK to invest in training. Rulers of France/Scotland not so happy because of fear to give potential of overthrow to the people (Scotland not in title, but in article along with France). Per…

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by ucaetano »

thearn4 wrote: post #50
zhte415 wrote: post #30

tl;dr: The abstract does a wonderful job. It is will worth reading. Longbow was cheap and technically superior, but required training. Crossbow more expensive, required less training. Rulers of England less worried about rebellion, OK to invest in training. Rulers of France/Scotland not so happy because of fear to give potential of overthrow to the people (Scotland not in title, but in article along with France). Per…

If I remember correctly (and I'm still looking for a better source than this[1]), the Duke Of Wellington had requested a corps of longbowmen be made ready for use against the French in the Napoleonic wars, but was advised that no one with the skill needed to train them still existed (the training being the most difficult part of the technology). The last use of trained english longbowmen seemed to have been by some o…

The "art" or "skill" wasn't lost, just not available promptly in battalion-size units.

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

#89

Post by mhd »

lambda wrote: post #74
mhd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, some papers written about crossbows seriously doubt that the penetrating power was that much better -- if at all. The poundage certainly was, but it had to be -- crossbow arms are short and the arrow doesn't travel as long, thus less time is available to transfer energy. And "large populace" makes it sound like they just handed out crossbows to peasant levies, instead of them being very highly paid mercenar…

Hmm. I'd be interested in seeing your source for that. Yes, the power imparted to the arrow is the integral of the poundage supplied by the bow or prod, over the distance that it is propelling the arrow, and that distance is shorter on a crossbow than a longbow. But you can have a much higher poundage and still be usable with a crossbow; you have two arms to draw together, and are supporting none of the draw weight w…

Payne-Gallwey's "The Book of the Crossbow" is at least in the same category as the paper's cited "Great Warbow". At one point he tests a 15th century siege crossbow with a draw weight of 1200 lbs, which is probably close to the upper limit (and requires a heavy cranequin). IIRC the Mary Rose longbows were about 150 lbs.

But that's a steel bow, which is stiffer than wood, and the draw length is pretty small.

W.F. Paterson published a test that compared a 70 lbs bow with a 740 lbs crossbow, and the initial velocity was about the same.

Now how that equates to actual damage is another issue, and I haven't seen a really good test about that. One major factor that one has to consider is that damage varies with range, too. So what might look comparable at close range might be completely different at far range. (I think the Genoese were out-ranged by the English at Crecy.)

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

#90

Post by wwwong »

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…

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, greatly outnumbering the Mongols. Fortified cities may cause trouble, but by this time, Mongol dominance had incorporated Chinese siege technology that fortified central european cities had not seen.

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