I wonder why western armies abandoned the longbow before longer range guns were invented

[NaughtiusMaximus]

While playing total war shogun I started thinking about how musket skirmishes were depicted in movies (like Barry Lyndon for example) and can't help but wonder why militaries during this time period seemed so... dumb. Also why didn't they incorporate longbows into their units. Couldn't a soldier carry a longbow and a musket? This way they could pepper their enemies long before they were in range to use their muskets, then they could just switch over to their muskets. Also why it took them so damn long to develop trench warfare (WW1). Like they seemed to devolve in terms of providing protection for their soldiers (just walk up to eachother and shoot eachother seemed to be the main strategy for fighting).

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Ursprungligen skrivet av freerangechikn:

Ursprungligen skrivet av NaughtiusMaximus:

it wasn't just tldr maybe my short response was tldr for you, I pointed out how he was making claims not backed by anything I can find in research, specific things that I pointed out, but I guess you might not be interested in historicity.

Fair enough, my apologies. I am guilty of the same thing I accused you of doing. To clarify, the implication was that you had ignored a well thought out response.

There were multiple instances where a specific conflict was referred to as evidence, with the suggestion that you study it. I suggest reading the responses. You might learn something, as I did.

Dismissing them does a disservice to your curiosity on the subject.

I would love to read more on his claims but I fail to find them anywhere on the internet so it's incumbent upon him to refer to a source instead of preaching if he expects me to read his comments further.

[Smoothhoof]

Downer. I was enjoying this! Can we just get back to arguing about old weapons please?

Naughtius, you referred to a school website. Good, but school teaches certainties. Where there is doubt they plum for the national myth. Truth is historians still argue the effective range of longbows now, and probably always will. I once read a French history book that claimed longbows were good for scaring horses at 50 paces. Ha ha!

[Mile pro Libertate]

Ursprungligen skrivet av NaughtiusMaximus:

Ursprungligen skrivet av freerangechikn:

Fair enough, my apologies. I am guilty of the same thing I accused you of doing. To clarify, the implication was that you had ignored a well thought out response.

There were multiple instances where a specific conflict was referred to as evidence, with the suggestion that you study it. I suggest reading the responses. You might learn something, as I did.

Dismissing them does a disservice to your curiosity on the subject.

I would love to read more on his claims but I fail to find them anywhere on the internet so it's incumbent upon him to refer to a source instead of preaching if he expects me to read his comments further.

Sources are generally only cited when things are controversial or obscure within a subject area. Within any subject area, there is a certain basal level of knowledge that is assumed.

For example, no one discussing WWII warfare needs to cite a source to say that German casualties at Stalingrad were immense, because that is just an uncontested fact. As another example, no one needs to cite a source if discussing Medieval history to say that William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066 AD. There is a certain base understanding that is taken for given.

So when it comes to what I was talking about, very little of it needs sourcing. No one with any foundation in understanding of gunpowder warfare is going to contest that field battles were relatively rare, that open order and light infantry tactics entailed greater strains on unit cohesion and necessitated a troop initiative and proficiency different from line tactics, or that one of the main reasons for formed volleys was concentration of fires.

Likewise, no one with rudimentary understanding of military science is going to contest that logistical concerns are crucial factors, or that equipping more kit entails greater operational friction. Much of that can be known a priori just by using deduction anyway.

No one who has read even brief summaries of the tactical aspects of the Imjin war is going to dispute the widespread adoption of the gun by Japanese forces in lieu of the bow, or anyone who knows what an Ottoman Janissary was is not going to contest that they utilized bows as late as the 17th century, etc. with the other historical campaigns and battle references.

A lot of the other stuff is both a priori and experiental without need of academic exposition, like the 360 yard range thing. Go have a friend stand at one end of an American football field while you stand at the opposite end: that's what a guy looks like at 100 yards away; now have hin stand an additional two and a half field's length away, and there is the target you're supposedly going to aim for and shoot with your longbow. Lol no.

The only things I talked about that would require sourcing were casualty proportions, and musket shot fired per combatant hit, but I even said in the same post that I could point you to further resources if you'd like exposition on that. I'm not going to make a reading list just to find out you didn't want it though, hence the offer rather than a bibliography pertaining to that post.

Anyway, what is happening here is that you are conflating lack of citation on my part with lack of foundational knowledge on your part. It's like someone who has no knowledge of English or Medieval European history saying there was a "lack of sources" verifying that William invaded in 1066 AD.

Sources are cited when there is contentious or conflicting hypotheses, or to do exposition on more nuanced topics. What you're doing though is asking for sources to verify things that are part of the basal levels of this subject area, in other words, you're acting as if I'm making unsubstantiated claims, when in reality you are asking for foundational education on the topic area.

And I'm happy to do that: that's why I responded to the thread and posted what I have posted. That's why I gave you selected wars and campaigns to look up, eg. Imjin War, 1494 Italian War and later, Eighty Years War, etc., and highlighted other specific things you can go look up, for example you can search for "WWI trench armor" and "sapper armor of 18th century" or such like, and read up on all of it.

You're acting like this is an academic debate, when your whole OP was a series of questions, very rudimentary ones about the topic. When I tried my best to answer your questions, you then say TLDR and say lack of sources.

Saying "TLDR" is pretty silly if you're starting a thread on such broad ideas as 'why did Western armies drop the longbow,' and claiming "unsourced claims" is pretty ludicrous when you're the one making challenge claims to things that are just part of the core topical understanding.

[Sn3z]

Expecting a solider to do both is just so unrealistic, beside the longbow was long gone by this point.

Also the charging scene in Barry Lyndon is cringe those french(could be swedes) could fire like machineguns.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sn3z:

Expecting a solider to do both is just so unrealistic, beside the longbow was long gone by this point.

Also the charging scene in Barry Lyndon is cringe those french(could be swedes) could fire like machineguns.

I don't know wtf you're talking about, what charging scene? You mean the scene where they WALK into the series of volleys?

[Cato]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sn3z:

Expecting a solider to do both is just so unrealistic, beside the longbow was long gone by this point.

Also the charging scene in Barry Lyndon is cringe those french(could be swedes) could fire like machineguns.

Sure it looks stupid (Im assuming you meant this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbBojWrOV2Y )

To our modern sensibilites sure - but bear in mind that weapons of the time where inaccuate and needed to fire in volleys due to the fact that well musket balls could fling off in a direction - now if you where to do what those men are doing with modern weapons of today you would be slaugtered - in fact this was a problem in the Boer War (but thats a whole nother argument)

Now you could fairly ague that 17-18th century tactics where silly and maybe they are or where but the thing is? They worked for a time I mean all they had to do was fire a volley THEN Charge I think this is best shown by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFpFHj4XfFg

The British in this scene simply got closer THEN fired - which was devastating to the American Patroits

[Mile pro Libertate]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Cato:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sn3z:

Expecting a solider to do both is just so unrealistic, beside the longbow was long gone by this point.

Also the charging scene in Barry Lyndon is cringe those french(could be swedes) could fire like machineguns.

Sure it looks stupid (Im assuming you meant this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbBojWrOV2Y )

To our modern sensibilites sure - but bear in mind that weapons of the time where inaccuate and needed to fire in volleys due to the fact that well musket balls could fling off in a direction - now if you where to do what those men are doing with modern weapons of today you would be slaugtered - in fact this was a problem in the Boer War (but thats a whole nother argument)

Now you could fairly ague that 17-18th century tactics where silly and maybe they are or where but the thing is? They worked for a time I mean all they had to do was fire a volley THEN Charge I think this is best shown by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFpFHj4XfFg

The British in this scene simply got closer THEN fired - which was devastating to the American Patroits

The thing with the "volley tactics were silly" argument is that is proves not too little, but too much.

In other words, when we really take a step back and look at it, all warfare is pretty silly, absurd, stupid, etc.

The linear warfare of the 17th-19th centuries looks silly because people are thinking how lame it would be to march into gunfire. But the only reason that sounds ludicrous, is because people are presuming it is better to not get shot than to be shot, and that rests on the idea that dying isn't good. In this sense then, there is no form of warfare that is sensible, truly speaking, because by definition people are going to die.

Any warfare necessarily entails putting friendlies at risk in order to do harm to enemies. Like I said earlier, all warfare necessitates a bodily risk calculation, otherwise it isn't war.

So the fact that guys in 17th-19th century infantry units were subjecting themselves to being shot in pitched volleys can only be deemed "stupid" or "silly" in two senses: either A) all warfare is silly or senseless (which means there is no reason to singling out 17-19th century warfare in particular to begin with), or B) this style of warfare represented something relatively less tactically sound than what came before it.

And that's the rub. People that get into these kinds of discussions and make assertions like in the OP are obviously not speaking in the sense of A (since they postulate alternative tactics); but they then seem to ignore B as if they are speaking from A. The result is that little can actually be rationally said.

The burden for someone giving a negative evaluation on the tactics is to show a deficit in the tactics. With other forms of warfare, this is usually done.

But when it comes to 17th-19th century firepower tactics, it is often skipped altogether and the tactic itself as highlighted as the deficit itself.

If we did this with other forms of warfare, it would be more apparent how silly that is. Like if someone said: "Why were people in Antiquity so dumb? Why would you form a battle line, have swords and spears, and then march up to a line of enemies with swords and spears? Did they want to get stabbed? Were they just stupid" Everyone would respond with: "Uh...because they were fighting each other?"

But when it comes to the firepower tactics of the 17th-19th centuries, this same mode of logic finds a lot of assent.

Imo, the reason for this is because people have preconceptions and misconceptions about firearms in general, and older blackpowder arms in particular, as well as battle. People think that guns can just be pointed willy nilly in the general direction of something, and they'll hit their mark; they think that in the heat of combat men load and aim just as calmly and assuredly as when they're recreationally shooting on a weekend; they assume that the enemy is always clearly visible; they ignore the effect of blackpowder smoke clouds; they ignore the effect of deafening noise and the clamor of battle; they just assume it would be easy to issue and hear commands over such noise; etc.

Once firearms were prevalent as battlefield weapon, men sought the most effective means to maximize their strengths and minimize or account for their weaknesses, just as with all prior weapons.

We seem to take it for granted that spears, swords, cavalry, catapults, shields, etc. were all employed in an environment of contest over life and death, of matching wits, but when it comes to the gunpowder era (especially 18th century), it seems to all get flipped on its head, and the popular idea just is, "people were stupid at that time," or something to that effect.

Far from it.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Ursprungligen skrivet av NaughtiusMaximus:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mile pro Libertate:

People tend to have weird ideas about range too, at least when it comes to shooting.

360 yards is a long shot, even by today's standards. There was no way that any Medieval combatants were shooting near 360 yards.

At 300 yards, you're hard pressed to even pick out man sized targets, let alone draw aim at any part specific on the body: point targets can be hit with some consistency, but people aren't getting anything like precise shot placement on men at those ranges, even with modern combat rifles such as M4, and even fitted with combat optics. There is no way that you'd have guys arcing arrows effectively onto man sized targets at those ranges.

The evidence we have corroborates this as well. We have things such as the surviving French battle plan for Agincourt and eyewitness account of that battle and many others, which gives a great idea as to engagement ranges, as well as the typical setup for Medieval archery practice and trials, nothing within which points to anything close to this long range shooting some people ascribe to bows. We also have Medieval illuminations.

When it comes to the illuminations, it's interesting to point out that you will not find any depictions of Medieval archers in combat shooting their bows in an arc: they're depicted shooting flat (ie. parallel to the ground) into enemy infantry, cavalry or from one warship to another, or shooting in siege and ship situations, either upwards from the ground/deck towards battlements/tops, or from the battlements/tops downwards. The idea of massed archers shooting upwards and lobbing their arrows onto the enemy ("plunging fire") starts appearing more from Hollywood in the 1950s and '60s movies than from any historical evidence.

Like Smoothhoof said, you'd have to be aiming for area effect. This would need both the enemy to be in close order, and for the guys shooting into that enemy to be concentrating their shots, so we come full circle to the idea of massing guys in close order, standing.

And speaking of standing, that's something else that wasn't even touched on yet regards tactics: shooting from kneeling, let alone lying down, was much more difficult if not totally impossible with longbows, whereas it was very feasible with firearms such as arquebuse or flintlock muskets.

Being able to more feasibly deliver shots effectively from behind cover was one of the virtues of the firelock, which is another reason why firearms were so successful and supplanted the bow. Crossbows were more practical in this regard than self bows, but firelocks were even more so than crossbows.

Getting back to the topic of range, and as has been touched on before in this thread, there is a difference between maximum range, and maximum effective range.

Even if a certain bow could send an arrow several hundred yards into a formed body of enemy, the issue was what terminal effect did that have. Even the minimal amount of armor for a High Medieval or Late Medieval combatant would overmatch an arrow at such extreme range. It isn't surprising then that the evidence all points to Medieval bowmen shooting at much, much closer ranges during combat, anywhere from 75 to 100 yards at the upper end, and then most of the real lethality potential coming in well under that, when opposing infantry closed, that is to say, less than 50 yards.

This effective engagement range for formed bow shooting in the Late Medieval were right in line with what formed musketry could easily achieve as well.

Some crucial differences being (as others have mentioned but bears repeating), that a typical firearm shot left much more grievous wounds than the typical bow shot, and that shields of the time were of no avail against firearm shot, but could very much reduce the effect of arrows or bolts; and at closer ranges, where the bow was at it's most lethal, high end armor harness could still nonetheless match the shot, whereas no practical field armor could match firearm shot.

https://schoolhistory.co.uk/medieval/medieval-longbow/#:~:text=With%20arrows%20that%20weighed%20half,reach%20up%20to%20250%20m.

I wouldn't really consider a presentation for middle schoolers (and that is literally what that link is to) a credible source, especially since it doesn't cite any sources itself; but leaving this aside, that "source" actually corroborates what I said, not counters it.

First off is this:

With arrows that weighed half a pound, the longbows were able to shoot a distance of about 330 m.

Arrows that weighed one pound could reach up to 250 m.

Notice the significant effect that the arrow weights have on the range obtained. Again, leaving aside the questionable weights here, it nonetheless shows that war arrows would have significantly shorter effective ranges than target or recreational arrows.

Then this, right after:

During a sporting event, one of Edward III’s archers reached a distance close to 370 m.


However, during their training, archers had to aim for their target, which often consisted of a cloth lying on the ground.

This target was placed at least 200 m away, which was the typical maximum shooting distance in battle.

So even this "source" puts max battle range at 200 meters, and clarifies again the difference between maximum range, and maximum effective (for combat) range, just as I said.

Nothing in this "source" says anything about shooting at 360 yards (~ 330 meters) as a maximum effective range as a weapon, like you were claiming.

All this "source" does is support the ideas that 1) max range and max effective range are distinct, and 2) at that, we're looking at 200 meters at most for battle.

It's worth mentioning that muskets could also shoot well out to 200 meters in a battle situation as well. The issue is what were the relative terminal effects at those ranges for a bow shot versus a typical musket from the period you were alluding to (18th century), and I talked about that already.

Practically speaking, based on the historical evidence we have, actual engagement ranges for longbows in actual battles that were recorded seem to have come in well under 200 meters.

Regardless, none of the stuff in the source you linked addresses any of the points I and several others raised regards lethality, terminal effect on armor, etc., nor refutes the point I raised about point targets and area effect, nor establishes that the English longbow had greater effective range than the musket, which was the key thing with your original idea in the OP.

Again, that's all leaving aside how dubious this source is anyway. It doesn't cite anything primary or secondary, excepting picture credits; and it also contains ridiculous statements such as the following:

[the longbow] also allowed Britain to win the Hundred Years’ War and to take France’s place as a military power in medieval Europe.

What? France *won the Hundred Years War*. Basic history alert, UK middle school teachers...use Google people...lol

Oh and this lovely gem:

In the Middle Ages, the longbow enjoyed the same respect as the current machine gun: it was precise, deadly, and had a wide range of action and speed of fire.

Just...urgggh...lol.

School History is the largest library of history teaching and study resources on the internet. We provide high-quality teaching and revision materials for UK and international history curriculum.

Right. So much for Brits looking down their nose at us 'ill informed yanks' lol.

Longbows were machine guns because orange man bad :D

[Sn3z]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Cato:

Nope didn't say it was stupid that shot*heh* scene in Barry Lyndon is stupid, with how many volley's they are getting off(film has been edited in this way) and how many men drop, I don't think its realistic and could skew some opinions, although the point of of the scene was to further drive the story. I also fairly sure the tactics would have even changed at some point the British were a lot more about charging(using the bayonet).

Camden video
The armies were deployed in such a way as it was easy to have command over them (the roots of how things developed into this can be traced back to the beginnings of pike and shot period) and it was a pure attrition based system. I imagine lines were thinned out because of artillery as well.

Also something which none us can really talk about is reloading while you have an enemy marching towards you, and reloading whilst under fire. Cause this is really what counts.

[Smoothhoof]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mile pro Libertate:

Ursprungligen skrivet av NaughtiusMaximus:

https://schoolhistory.co.uk/medieval/medieval-longbow/#:~:text=With%20arrows%20that%20weighed%20half,reach%20up%20to%20250%20m.

I wouldn't really consider a presentation for middle schoolers (and that is literally what that link is to) a credible source, especially since it doesn't cite any sources itself; but leaving this aside, that "source" actually corroborates what I said, not counters it.

First off is this:

With arrows that weighed half a pound, the longbows were able to shoot a distance of about 330 m.

Arrows that weighed one pound could reach up to 250 m.

Notice the significant effect that the arrow weights have on the range obtained. Again, leaving aside the questionable weights here, it nonetheless shows that war arrows would have significantly shorter effective ranges than target or recreational arrows.

Then this, right after:

During a sporting event, one of Edward III’s archers reached a distance close to 370 m.


However, during their training, archers had to aim for their target, which often consisted of a cloth lying on the ground.

This target was placed at least 200 m away, which was the typical maximum shooting distance in battle.

So even this "source" puts max battle range at 200 meters, and clarifies again the difference between maximum range, and maximum effective (for combat) range, just as I said.

Nothing in this "source" says anything about shooting at 360 yards (~ 330 meters) as a maximum effective range as a weapon, like you were claiming.

All this "source" does is support the ideas that 1) max range and max effective range are distinct, and 2) at that, we're looking at 200 meters at most for battle.

It's worth mentioning that muskets could also shoot well out to 200 meters in a battle situation as well. The issue is what were the relative terminal effects at those ranges for a bow shot versus a typical musket from the period you were alluding to (18th century), and I talked about that already.

Practically speaking, based on the historical evidence we have, actual engagement ranges for longbows in actual battles that were recorded seem to have come in well under 200 meters.

Regardless, none of the stuff in the source you linked addresses any of the points I and several others raised regards lethality, terminal effect on armor, etc., nor refutes the point I raised about point targets and area effect, nor establishes that the English longbow had greater effective range than the musket, which was the key thing with your original idea in the OP.

Again, that's all leaving aside how dubious this source is anyway. It doesn't cite anything primary or secondary, excepting picture credits; and it also contains ridiculous statements such as the following:

[the longbow] also allowed Britain to win the Hundred Years’ War and to take France’s place as a military power in medieval Europe.

What? France *won the Hundred Years War*. Basic history alert, UK middle school teachers...use Google people...lol

Oh and this lovely gem:

In the Middle Ages, the longbow enjoyed the same respect as the current machine gun: it was precise, deadly, and had a wide range of action and speed of fire.

Just...urgggh...lol.

School History is the largest library of history teaching and study resources on the internet. We provide high-quality teaching and revision materials for UK and international history curriculum.

Right. So much for Brits looking down their nose at us 'ill informed yanks' lol.

Longbows were machine guns because orange man bad :D

Its embarrassing. I only glanced at this pile of chuff, can't believe you took the time to read through it! In defence of the UK schooling system, I would just point out that it's a resource pack designed for teachers by God knows who, not official curriculum material.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Smoothhoof:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mile pro Libertate:

I wouldn't really consider a presentation for middle schoolers (and that is literally what that link is to) a credible source, especially since it doesn't cite any sources itself; but leaving this aside, that "source" actually corroborates what I said, not counters it.

First off is this:


Notice the significant effect that the arrow weights have on the range obtained. Again, leaving aside the questionable weights here, it nonetheless shows that war arrows would have significantly shorter effective ranges than target or recreational arrows.

Then this, right after:


So even this "source" puts max battle range at 200 meters, and clarifies again the difference between maximum range, and maximum effective (for combat) range, just as I said.

Nothing in this "source" says anything about shooting at 360 yards (~ 330 meters) as a maximum effective range as a weapon, like you were claiming.

All this "source" does is support the ideas that 1) max range and max effective range are distinct, and 2) at that, we're looking at 200 meters at most for battle.

It's worth mentioning that muskets could also shoot well out to 200 meters in a battle situation as well. The issue is what were the relative terminal effects at those ranges for a bow shot versus a typical musket from the period you were alluding to (18th century), and I talked about that already.

Practically speaking, based on the historical evidence we have, actual engagement ranges for longbows in actual battles that were recorded seem to have come in well under 200 meters.

Regardless, none of the stuff in the source you linked addresses any of the points I and several others raised regards lethality, terminal effect on armor, etc., nor refutes the point I raised about point targets and area effect, nor establishes that the English longbow had greater effective range than the musket, which was the key thing with your original idea in the OP.

Again, that's all leaving aside how dubious this source is anyway. It doesn't cite anything primary or secondary, excepting picture credits; and it also contains ridiculous statements such as the following:



What? France *won the Hundred Years War*. Basic history alert, UK middle school teachers...use Google people...lol

Oh and this lovely gem:


Just...urgggh...lol.



Right. So much for Brits looking down their nose at us 'ill informed yanks' lol.

Longbows were machine guns because orange man bad :D

Its embarrassing. I only glanced at this pile of chuff, can't believe you took the time to read through it! In defence of the UK schooling system, I would just point out that it's a resource pack designed for teachers by God knows who, not official curriculum material.

Well sadly there are two things on that.

First, they cite their official endorsement by curriculae boards:

Over 20 Years of History Resources
Proudly serving over 2 million teachers every year
Since 1999, School History has been providing teaching materials for history teachers to save them hours in time.

...

If you teach GCSE or International GCSE history, we are fully aligned with the 6 most important exam boards in the world: AQA, Edexcel, OCR, CIE, WJEC and Eduqas.

And then you have this:

John D Clare is a former Head of History at Greenfield School, County Durham, and he eventually moved on to become Deputy Headteacher there.

John studied Modern History at Oxford University and graduated in 1974. He also achieved a Post-Graduate Certificate for Specific Learning Difficulties.

With over 100 history text books to his name, published in 19 countries and 17 different languages, John D Clare is one of the most respected history teachers in the world, and his teaching materials have been used here on School History by hundreds of thousands of teachers and students.

As you said though, technically nothing official by the UK system, as the organization is a private firm, and with several other contributors.

Still though, it's scary that no small amount of UK teachers have and are using these "resources," that they play up the "imprimatur," so to speak, of Master Clare, and you have the exam board certs.

Anyway, education in general is at a real low point in quality and substance, not just in the UK.

[Smoothhoof]

Wonder what John D Clare's books are about? He referred to Britain as a political unit. I would have thought that even a guy who specialises in modern rather than medieval history would know that the Act of Union wouldn't come in for nearly two and a half centuries after the Hundred Years War. There wasn't a Britain except in geography, politically there was England and Scotland. During that war the top half of the future Britain was on France's side a lot of the time! He must have got the new guy to make this fact sheet.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mile pro Libertate:

Ursprungligen skrivet av NaughtiusMaximus:

https://schoolhistory.co.uk/medieval/medieval-longbow/#:~:text=With%20arrows%20that%20weighed%20half,reach%20up%20to%20250%20m.

I wouldn't really consider a presentation for middle schoolers (and that is literally what that link is to) a credible source, especially since it doesn't cite any sources itself; but leaving this aside, that "source" actually corroborates what I said, not counters it.

First off is this:

With arrows that weighed half a pound, the longbows were able to shoot a distance of about 330 m.

Arrows that weighed one pound could reach up to 250 m.

Notice the significant effect that the arrow weights have on the range obtained. Again, leaving aside the questionable weights here, it nonetheless shows that war arrows would have significantly shorter effective ranges than target or recreational arrows.

Then this, right after:

During a sporting event, one of Edward III’s archers reached a distance close to 370 m.


However, during their training, archers had to aim for their target, which often consisted of a cloth lying on the ground.

This target was placed at least 200 m away, which was the typical maximum shooting distance in battle.

So even this "source" puts max battle range at 200 meters, and clarifies again the difference between maximum range, and maximum effective (for combat) range, just as I said.

Nothing in this "source" says anything about shooting at 360 yards (~ 330 meters) as a maximum effective range as a weapon, like you were claiming.

All this "source" does is support the ideas that 1) max range and max effective range are distinct, and 2) at that, we're looking at 200 meters at most for battle.

It's worth mentioning that muskets could also shoot well out to 200 meters in a battle situation as well. The issue is what were the relative terminal effects at those ranges for a bow shot versus a typical musket from the period you were alluding to (18th century), and I talked about that already.

Practically speaking, based on the historical evidence we have, actual engagement ranges for longbows in actual battles that were recorded seem to have come in well under 200 meters.

Regardless, none of the stuff in the source you linked addresses any of the points I and several others raised regards lethality, terminal effect on armor, etc., nor refutes the point I raised about point targets and area effect, nor establishes that the English longbow had greater effective range than the musket, which was the key thing with your original idea in the OP.

Again, that's all leaving aside how dubious this source is anyway. It doesn't cite anything primary or secondary, excepting picture credits; and it also contains ridiculous statements such as the following:

[the longbow] also allowed Britain to win the Hundred Years’ War and to take France’s place as a military power in medieval Europe.

What? France *won the Hundred Years War*. Basic history alert, UK middle school teachers...use Google people...lol

Oh and this lovely gem:

In the Middle Ages, the longbow enjoyed the same respect as the current machine gun: it was precise, deadly, and had a wide range of action and speed of fire.

Just...urgggh...lol.

School History is the largest library of history teaching and study resources on the internet. We provide high-quality teaching and revision materials for UK and international history curriculum.

Right. So much for Brits looking down their nose at us 'ill informed yanks' lol.

Longbows were machine guns because orange man bad :D

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/the-english-longbow-machine.html#:~:text=A%20six-foot%20bow%20made,armor%20of%20the%20medieval%20period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Range

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8022/how-far-could-an-english-war-bow-shoot

https://www.realmofhistory.com/2016/05/03/10-interesting-facts-english-longbowman/

https://www.medievalists.net/2015/10/why-was-the-longbow-so-effective/

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bow-medieval-warfare

[Smoothhoof]

Come on man. Nobody is saying longbows were rubbish, just that guns were better.

Just imagine a weapon where the entire male population had to practice every day just to give the king 10000 archers when he wanted a war. How popular do you think that would have been? They even banned football at one point. They banned football. In England.

Meanwhile other countries are starting to use firearms, a bit slower sure, but its scarier to face up to, and will hurt a man in armour every time, not just some of the time. And firearms are so easy to use that in peacetime people get to train to be weavers and lathe operators or whatever the economy needs, and get to play football.

As for accuracy, once everyone has fired their cannons on a battlefield no one can see anything for the smoke anyway (I have fired a cannon as well btw).

As for armour, if you can't rely on your armour to protect you from the enemies' fire, it makes sense to forget about it and concentrate on firing faster. Is your armour slowing you down? Take some of it off then and fire faster!

Some European heavy cavalry still wore armour right into the 19th century but not as protection from gunfire, it was for the swordfight.

[Sn3z]

The Scots at Flodden(If I remember right) brought up their heavy armored infantry and placed on the front ranks intentionally, then preceded down a sloping terrain, the longbows impact was minimal.

The longbow fell out during this period because of adaptability to terrain + at its time modern day armor, and then a combination of firearms + artillery. Also the years worth of training required, just naturally built up via hunting, which was a actual profession. Even in hunting the longbow was most likely replaced by firearms which this would have been the nail in coffin. You can't revert back to the longbow.