Slitherine

gavril wrote:I'm sure that RBS and other knowledgeable people will post a proper response, but just a thought...

There used to be an ongoing debate around the question of why armies switched in this period from the apparently lethal longbow to the use of the arquebus. People compared firing rate, accuracy, reliability etc. to put the argument that the longbow was the more lethal weapon. This position fell though on the point that the longbowman had to be highly trained (it often took a lifetime of training to become really adept) and very fit, even after weeks or months on campaign. In contrast, you could train just about anyone to use an arquebus, and replace losses relatively quickly. AFAIK - unless the debate has moved on in recent years - that became the clincher as to why armies switched to what appeared on a purely technical basis to be a less deadly alternative.

My point being that the reasons for changes in battlefield formations and weaponry aren't always obvious!

Cheers,
Jay

Tacticaly the Longbow has the advantage e.g a Longbow can fire up to 12 shots per minute, the Arquebuse 1. But strategicaly the Arquebuse has the advantage. It took about 1/2 a day to build 1 Arquebuse, building an Longbow takes several days.
Also within a couple of days you can drill a man to effectively use a Arquebuse. It takes several years to train seasoned longbowmen. The Arquebuse is also much cheaper. So the Arquebuse is a much more attractive option if you need to raise large bodys of armed men in a time when standing armys began to appear.

Seydlitz wrote:

gavril wrote:I'm sure that RBS and other knowledgeable people will post a proper response, but just a thought...

There used to be an ongoing debate around the question of why armies switched in this period from the apparently lethal longbow to the use of the arquebus. People compared firing rate, accuracy, reliability etc. to put the argument that the longbow was the more lethal weapon. This position fell though on the point that the longbowman had to be highly trained (it often took a lifetime of training to become really adept) and very fit, even after weeks or months on campaign. In contrast, you could train just about anyone to use an arquebus, and replace losses relatively quickly. AFAIK - unless the debate has moved on in recent years - that became the clincher as to why armies switched to what appeared on a purely technical basis to be a less deadly alternative.

My point being that the reasons for changes in battlefield formations and weaponry aren't always obvious!

Cheers,
Jay

Tacticaly the Longbow has the advantage e.g a Longbow can fire up to 12 shots per minute, the Arquebuse 1. But strategicaly the Arquebuse has the advantage. It took about 1/2 a day to build 1 Arquebuse, building an Longbow takes several days.
Also within a couple of days you can drill a man to effectively use a Arquebuse. It takes several years to train seasoned longbowmen. The Arquebuse is also much cheaper. So the Arquebuse is a much more attractive option if you need to raise large bodys of armed men in a time when standing armys began to appear.

From my understanding you cant train men with the early firearms "effectively" in a few days. There are too many things that can go wrong, and in the heat of battle inexperianced troops were horrible at it.
Bottom line, firearms were better vs armour and just plain better at killing people


interesting quote form an observer of Spanish non veteran troop 1560's

“To fire their arquebuses they charge them to the mouth [of the gun] with powder; they take hold of them half way along the barrel with their left hand and move their arm as far away as they can, to prevent the fire from touching them ( as they are so afraid of it); and when they light it with the wick in their other hand they turn their face away, just like those who are waiting for the bloodletter to open a vein; and even when they Žfire they close their eyes and go pale, and shake like an old house”. (Quoted after Lorraine White. The Experience of Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers: Combat, Welfare and Violence. // War In History 2002; 9; 1

Additional factors in favor of the arquebus include the psychological impact of the noise and smoke of the arquebus as well as the much greater ease of production and transport of the ammunition. Note that the atquebus was adopted in Japan over their traditional use of the bow as well after its introduction there.

Chris

I think the difficulty of training men with bows is a bit overstated, and the ease of using an early firearms vastly overstated. Loading them was a very cumbersome and dangerous task. Still once you have a standing army, a few months of training in winter quarters will get your arquebusiers or the like up to a decent degree of proficiency.

However the partisans of the longbow underestimate how much better an arquebus was against armored opponents. An arquebus has vastly better penetration against armored targets than bows. Even longbows will generally not penetrate a breast plate or even other types of armor. Arquebus shot will almost always do so at effective range, and will inflict an incapacitating or lethal wound. (The shot-proofing of armor was done against pistols which have much less penetrating power, and even these tests were often of pretty dubious repute.)

kdonovan wrote:However the partisans of the longbow underestimate how much better an arquebus was against armored opponents. An arquebus has vastly better penetration against armored targets than bows. Even longbows will generally not penetrate a breast plate or even other types of armor. Arquebus shot will almost always do so at effective range, and will inflict an incapacitating or lethal wound. (The shot-proofing of armor was done against pistols which have much less penetrating power, and even these tests were often of pretty dubious repute.)

I think thats a valid point. The caliber of an arquebus can range up to 18mm - 20mm. A hit with such a caliber will rip great holes in your body and the bullet will draw pieces of cloth inside the wound which can ignite infections even if the initial wound was not lethal. By contrast you can survive several hits from a bow if youre lucky and one of your main arteries isnt hit.

A arquebus will break armor of ranges up to 100 meters; the bow, if youre lucky, up to 60 meters but I think you have to hit a weakpoint..

kdonovan wrote:I think the difficulty of training men with bows is a bit overstated, and the ease of using an early firearms vastly overstated. Loading them was a very cumbersome and dangerous task. Still once you have a standing army, a few months of training in winter quarters will get your arquebusiers or the like up to a decent degree of proficiency.

Training somebody to be able to use a matchlock firearm is pretty simple, a day can do it - been there, done that, got the powder burns to prove it Getting that man to the point where he can then do all that in battle is more time consuming, but that's more about psychology - however, if we look at the raising of armies in the TYW or around then for example it looks like you're talking a few weeks but they'll still be somewhat raw. Training a man in the basics of archery is also not that difficult, the problem comes when you want them to use an effective warbow that will be useful on a battlefield - those are the archers that took years to become competent; there are good reasons that the crossbow was more usually used by militia troops.

However the partisans of the longbow underestimate how much better an arquebus was against armored opponents. An arquebus has vastly better penetration against armored targets than bows. Even longbows will generally not penetrate a breast plate or even other types of armor. Arquebus shot will almost always do so at effective range, and will inflict an incapacitating or lethal wound. (The shot-proofing of armor was done against pistols which have much less penetrating power, and even these tests were often of pretty dubious repute.)

You could shot proof against heavier weapons than a pistol, however, the weight of the armour started to become rather significant. At the end of the C15th a quality armour that would be good against most hand weapons, crossbows and warbows (at least on the main areas) weighed in the 20-28Kg range, by the end of the C16th a "shot proof" harness could weigh 50Kg+. Economics also factored - you just couldn't afford to equip any meaningful number of people that way. As noted even armour proofed against pistols was, in reality, not.

For one thing Artillery became more powerful and accurate. Perhaps not well portrayed in the game, but on the real life battlefield an ET would have difficulty against artillery. Those men are hard to replace.

For another, Tercio and Keils were (at least in part) a response to Knights & Gendarmes. Once they stopped doing their thing and converted to Pistol armed mounted then the Tercio wanted to get more firepower per frontage.

There seems to have been a a very broad and gradual change whereby European infantry were becoming more reluctant to actually close to contact over this period of time. To the extant this was not a change in behavior in reaction to the abandonment of shock formations, it might have been a cause of changing from formations emphasizing shock to firepower.